New Beginnings

The celebrations of Christmas and vacation are coming to a close and now thoughts of getting 'back to normal life' enter our minds. It seems natural to evaluate how we’d like to 'do things different’ this year, aka, make New Year’s resolutions. It’s time for a new beginning. We, of course, can always start something new at any time but a simple look at a calendar, a simple measurement of time, resets our minds to a stop and start of a new season of life. Praise God for starts and stops. They bring us hope! With the end of a job is beginning of hope for a new one. With the end of Winter is the hope of the warm weather of Spring and all its floral glory. Time is continuous yet God knew we needed starts and stops to instill hope within us. He gives new seasons and years. In the old Jewish law He mandated a Sabbath rest for the land every 7 years with a year of Jubilee after every 49 years. This was a time of rest, reflection and renewal…a new beginning.

Yesterday at church the middle school pastor had people walk onto the stage holding “cardboard testimonies”. The front contained a short phrase of a state of life they used to be in or a sin, and on the back there was a phrase about how God had led them through that and where they stood now. Examples, “I wanted to die – God met me there”, “Addicted to drugs and alcohol for 12 years- Clean and sober for 2 years” and “Date raped at 17- Healed by the grace of God, married and pregnant at 33”.

God is a god of grace, hope and new beginnings. Praise Him! Even at the so-called “end of time” there will still be new beginnings…a new heaven and earth. He calls himself the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and declares, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Rev 21:1-6

Praise Him for His grace and hope! At the start of this new year I have new hopes, and it seems apt that I mention this post is what I hope to be the restart of Lippy’s blog. ;)