This year I am making three years since I came to Japan. Every other day I learn something new about Japan. One of the things I have noticed about the Japanese is that most men shave their beard clean. For me I tend to let it grow and shave only once in a while. I guess most people, seeing me with a grown beard, perhaps they see it as just one of the many ways I am different from the other people around me. Some people think I look good with a beard while others think I should get rid of it.

Not long ago one of my teachers asked me a question that caught me off guard. “Why do you grow your beard?”. For the first time I took a moment to think about it. Since around the age of 17 I have had a beard, but I don’t remember once when I shaved it all off. You too may be wondering why I keep the beard, but before that day my teacher asked me I never thought of the reason why I did. I don’t let it grow wildly, but somehow it never goes away completely.

To come up with an answer I had to go back to the days before I had a beard. When I was 15, one day I was seated behind a counter when an old man approached and greeted me “Agandi mwishiki”. (Nyankole for “Hello, young girl”). I felt insulted very deeply.

Now years later, even without thinking about it, I keep the beard so that no one will ever mistake me for a girl again. All along it was never about the beard that I kept it, but what it represented, what it meant to me. To me, the beard is what made it clear that I was a boy and not a girl. It made me a boy. Over six years later, I hadn’t moved past the words “Agandi mwishiki”. This is when I realized that I was a captive of my past.

There are things from our past that we hang on to, some things we do or don’t do, things we possess. They aren’t necessarily bad things, but they represent something in our past. Something we need to let go of. It may be something that happened, or something that was said to you, but you never got past it.

I watch In Touch Ministries video podcast with Dr. Charles Stanley. A few months ago there was a series, Healing Damaged Emotions, on victory over emotions. He talked about overcoming fear, anger, rejection, anxiety, unforgiveness and guilt. These, among other emotions, emanating from the past can hold us back in life.

I don’t know what your story is, but if there is something holding you back, I want to encourage you to pray and ask God help you get over it. Remember, we may be products of your past, but we don’t have to be its captives. May God give you the strength to get past your past.