A fresh start

Did you ever stop to think the New Year is just a time where we enter into a space and place where new chapters will be written? Some of us are so "down" on ourselves because of some the chapters we have allowed to be written into our lives this year we cannot see beyond those chapters. The story isn't over - so there are more chapters to be written! That affords us a "change of venue" for the writing of the next!

13 O God, your ways are holy. Where is there any other as mighty as you? 14 You are the God of miracles and wonders! You still demonstrate your awesome power. 19 Your road led by a pathway through the sea—a pathway no one knew was there! (Psalm 77:13-14, 19 TLB)

God still stands ready to demonstrate his awesome power in our lives. We don't have to fear he has left us without any "re-writes". In fact, he may "edit" those chapters completely so they no longer have any bearing on the story that will be forthcoming! After all...he IS the God of miracles and wonders! Most of us expect far less from ourselves than what we have planned to write on the pages of this New Year's journey - so maybe it is time we expect more of him instead!

New Year's Day. A fresh start. A new chapter in life waiting to be written. New questions to be asked, embraced, and loved. Answers to be discovered and then lived in this transformative year of delight and self-discovery. Today carve out a quiet interlude for yourself in which to dream, pen in hand. Only dreams give birth to change. (Sarah Ban Breathnach)

What "new questions" will you ask yourself or others? 

What is it you wish to see written into the pages of your life?

Where is it you desire a "fresh start"?

What is it you seek to discover - either for the first time or to find it anew again?

Where is it you will find the beginning of your new chapter?

Tough questions, but I think Sarah said it well - when we "carve out" that time to get alone with God, consider what it is we desire above all else, and then surrender what we have been so selfishly holding onto that we "want to do ourselves", we find God begins to edit our pages and enter new content into those still left blank before us. We are not our own "editors" - God needs that spot in our lives. We can dream of what the pages might say, but those dreams are best clarified by God if we are to see them written in such a way they become the chapters we want to call "keepers" in our life! Just sayin!