Beginning Again

Beginning again really had to start yesterday. It’s almost impossible to start anew if you have yesterday’s unhappiness blinding you from your future happiness. You have to let go!
It’s like the old story: if you keep trying to treat the symptoms you will find it hard to eliminate the true cause. It’s like taking pill after pill for repeated headaches when in your heart you know that the pill will only help you feel good for an hour or two and then that ache will return!
Then, after taking a few bottles of pills, you realize you have two choices left. You have to find a stronger pill and continue to treat the symptom or you have to go to the doctor and find a way to treat the headache’s cause.
Beginning again is similar to that headache. Many times I have talked to people that have tried to start their lives over only to find that a short time later they felt themselves back in the same old rut.
Unless you search out the cause of your unhappiness, and sometimes you find it hard to admit that YOU are the cause, your trying to begin again is just a fruitless exercise. The land of beginning again has many new residents but far fewer long term folks.
If you have messed up your life and now you feel guilty, ask for God’s forgiveness. If you feel you have more on your plate than you can handle, turn to that Friend by your side and hand it to Him. I’m sure He is better equipped to handle major problems than any of us.
Did I hear you ask “How do you know anyone is by my side”? It’s called FAITH. Believe me I know He is there! You must learn to believe in Him. I know you can’t see Him. You can’t reach out and touch Him.
I know He is there. I have staked my life on Him being there and He has never failed me!
Each new day in our life opens up new learning experiences and new blessings. The day we miss out on the learning and overlook our blessings is a day wasted and those days are too precious to waste. God puts many good things in each of our lives each day. Ask Him to open each of our hearts so we don’t miss a thing.
Everyone messes up, some of us many times. God lets us do many of these things as learning tools. Then He has given us many ways to be forgiven for our mess ups.
I find no place in the Bible that tells me my life will be easy. I’m sure most of us have had a major tragedy in our lives. Many of us have had several. We must remember, all of those past happenings are history. They are things we can’t change! We have to learn that we can’t let those unhappy moments of yesterday blind us from our tomorrows, our starting again. There is no way we can go back and live in yesterday!
At the gateway to the land of beginning again you will notice a large dumpster. Before we enter the gate we have to make some changes. That dumpster is the place we leave the parts of our lives we want to change. It’s the place we deposit all of our excess baggage that keeps pulling us down. It’s the true key to our new beginning. We have to give up all of those old habits that made us so unhappy in the first place. We can’t start a new life if we continue to carry all of those hang-ups that made us want to start over in the first place. You’ll find some of those old habits hard to change.
God will always help you start over but you must remember that God also gave each of us “our free agency” (our right to mess up our lives) and YOU must be willing to change or it’s just the same old same old. There is no way we can say a prayer and then just sit back and expect God to do all the work! We have to show God we are willing to do our part. In my years I have noticed that the prayers most answered are the prayers in which we are willing to help. With each expected answer to our prayers to change our lives we have to show our willingness to change. Remember no place did it say it would be easy.
In her poem “The Land of Beginning Again” author Louise Tarkington wrote; I wish that there were some wonderful place in the land of beginning again. Where all of our mistakes and all of our heartaches and all of our poor selfish grief could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door and never be put on again.