It has been several years since I have written a blog here but believe it is time for me to begin to write again. As I set out to start one of my New Year’s Resolutions (writing more here) I am reminded that even the ability to set goals/ resolutions and to have a fresh start is a true gift from God.
As I was sitting down on New Year’s Day to collect my thoughts and make a list of things I would like to do and see this year, I thought about how some people don’t feel that they are able to do this. Maybe they just received a difficult medical diagonsis and have limited time, maybe they have gone through a difficult relational breakup, or maybe they just lost a loved one and can’t even think of how they will get up in the morning let alone set a goal. And some people live in a country where they will be stuck in the same job/system/situation for the unforseeable future and seemingly have no hope of change or anything different than what they have known.
But God. God allows each of us to see a new day. He allows each of us a new hope, a new beginning, a new way. And it doesn’t have to be a New Year to experience change in our lives. Each day we are alive is a day that we are able to have a new day in Jesus Christ. The old is gone, the new has come. God’s grace is more than our past failures and our past mistakes. He gives us hope and a future. There is a song that has the lines “I may lose my way, nothing’s greater than your grace, not even my mistakes” – Mistakes by Unspoken
Even if our circumstances do not change, God is alive and working in our hearts to help us understand that He has a purpose in our pain and a comfort in our sorrows, which is to make himself known to us and in turn to help us make God known to those around us.
Thank you, God, for the blessing of a New Year and a fresh start through faith in Jesus. Thank you that we can come to you at any moment and you will give us the grace to start new and cling to the hope you give us in Jesus Christ. The old is gone, the new has come.
Under the Elm Tree 