New Starts

Good morning,  God, and thank you for this new day.  Today I get to start over again, completely anew in many ways.  I go to school and a new day awaits me--new ways of treating people, new things to say to them, new ways of looking at what my students do and how they do it.  Track season started yesterday, so we have new things to look forward to in track, especially since last year's coach seems to have made a pretty big mess of things.  I'm hoping that we're going to be able to overcome the negative perception of the program and have a successful season.  I believe it can happen, but it remains to be seen how.

Each day should be a new start for me, but most days I forget this fact.  I get caught up in the routine, in the same old things--lesson plans, class plans, work to do, papers to grade.  It's pretty difficult sometimes to pull myself back and look at things in a fresh way, to see the possibility and potential inherent in each day rather than the limitations that are in place because of others and, of course, myself.

I think that one very important thing for me to do is to keep my mind on you, on the eternal, because that helps me to remember just how fleeting everything is, just how quickly this all will pass and become something else.  And since it is fleeting, we might as well take our time with what we're doing and notice all  the beauty and love around us.  We might as well take the time to connect to others, to learn things about them and realize just how important they really are to us.

We're starting anew every day--even every moment, if we're able to keep our minds on that possibility.  What I would like to ask you is for your grace, for your constant reminder that we are eternal beings here in a temporal state, for your assurance that things will be fine in our new starts, even if we're not necessarily successful in all that we start.

A reply:

New starts are beautiful, and yes, they are constant if you wish them to be.  My only word of caution would be to make sure that what you started before is finished before you move on to a new start.  Many of my children have a very hard time in life because of their unfinished business, because they haven't brought to a close something that they've started.  As the unfinished tasks in our lives pile up, they start to weigh you down and give you trouble on your journey, causing you to move more slowly and more uncertainly on your way as you carry the burdens of today and yesterday.

But you're right--today is a good day to see new things in people, to find new joy in old tasks, to find new things to compliment in old friends, to share new words of encouragement with people who need it.  New starts can happen every moment, and one of my hopes for all of you is that you're able to keep moving forward like a flowing river in which the water never stagnates.  There is definitely a flow to life, and either you can tell yourself that you're still in the same old river, or you can look about and say "Look at the new sights that the river has carried me to see today!"