Fresh Starts

While the new year is an invitation for a fresh start, it is not always easy.  Fresh starts are often hindered by the baggage we are unable to turn loose.  Sometimes we cannot turn it loose and sometimes it will not turn us loose.  As much as we might want to think turning the calendar page to January gives us a clean slate, we know such is not really the case.  It would be a wonderful thing if a calendar page had that kind of power, but our experience has taught us it offers a promise of deliverance from the past, but no real lasting deliverance.    

Fresh starts usually begin with forgiveness and grace.  Quite often the first person to whom we have to extend forgiveness is ourselves.  We tend to beat ourselves so often and so long that we soon begin to see a new beginning as an impossibility.  And, maybe it is impossible if we think that we have the power to deliver ourselves from the guilt of wrong choices that have dragged us away from life.  Once we come to terms with the reality of personal accountability, the road to the new beginning will open up to us.    

And as it opens we are going to find the God who created us extending a hand to pull us out of the mire which has seemed inescapable.  To seek God's help may seem like a wasted exercise, but He is the One who through His grace can set our feet on a road toward meaningful living again.  New beginnings begin with Him.  He is the Creator of new beginnings and will work such a miracle in anyone one of us who claims what needs to be claimed as the brokenness in our life and who seeks the forgiveness always needed and available from Him for fresh starts.