Life is full of new beginnings. They’re around every corner. A new school year, new family dynamics with a child sent off to college, a new job, new house, and there’s even a sense of newness to daily life after saying good-bye to a loved one. With each rising sun, there is the promise of trying challenges and unexpected blessings, and they begin anew each and every morning.
I used to spend all day Thursday with my mom in the care center where she lived during the last several months of her life. I’d care for her throughout the week, but Thursdays was dedicated to her alone. Often the day would be filled with running to the grocery store, chatting with doctors, assessing new needs, and keeping her calm by sitting next to her and holding her hand.
We had some pretty interesting adventures together in that care center. On one particular day, one of her elderly neighbors came into mom’s room yelling and shaking her finger at me. Because I stole her husband.
Duh.
Of course, my heart went out to this dear woman; I laughed at myself as I logically tried to make a defense. I even had her bend down and check under the bed (the only place I imagined I could hide a husband I stole. Since I was actually imagining where I would hide a husband I stole).
Once the woman was convinced her husband wasn’t there, she left the room, and my mother, who was barely able to form words, looked at me and said: “I have him.”
And we laughed. Oh, Mom. I know where I got my awful sense of humor.
In the weeks following mom’s death, I found Thursdays to be unexpectedly difficult. I carefully thought through what I would do with my extra time, but instead of feeling a sense of freedom with the hours, I felt a great heaviness every time Thursday would come around, and I’d spend much of the day piddling around trying to regain a sense of normalcy. That didn’t happen quickly.
Thursdays were a new beginning.
I drove my youngest to her 4th grade open house the other day. She was more excited than I had seen her in a long time. My oldest sat in the front with me and we laughed while we listened to this firecracker in the back seat:
“I’m just like so nervous. Just like SOO nervous. But it’s not really nervous. It’s just kind of LIKE nervous because this is what happens when you’re excited but also nervous. It’s just like, I hope I’m allowed to chew gum.”
There is a grand difference between 4th grade and teenage-hood. The level of excitement about the new school year from my older two looked like this on morning number one:
Compared to this one who expressed on the way to school that she’s hoping to learn about the very worst chemical in the world in 4th grade:
For all three of my kiddos, the school year was a new beginning.
And a few days ago I stood in line to take an exam as I begin the process of retaining my Masters in Theology. In the sea of students I didn’t know, who all seemed much younger than me, I had a profound realization and said under my breath:
I’m so nervous.
Because how am I going to balance it all? Because I hadn’t taken a test in, oh, seventeen years. Because this was all totally new. And because I couldn’t quite remember the length of the Jordan river.
Good thing that wasn’t on the test.
But as I spilled over the questions and tried to recall verses from Scripture, I was stopped in mid- sentence as I wrote out Jeremiah 3:20-24:
“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, therefore I will hope in him.”
Tears welled up as the words tugged at my heart; his mercies never come to an end. Every single morning they are poured out for us, given abundantly for whatever the Lord knows we will face in that day. And they are new every morning. There aren’t just five of them to choose from in hopes that a particular mercy will match a certain need. No. They are new every single morning and are given to perfectly fit the joy we will experience and the challenges we will face.
And so this I will call to mind because it gives me hope. This truth. This love. This mercy. Whatever change is on your horizon – an empty nest, a baby on the way, a child off to school, a different job, or unfamiliar surroundings- the new beginnings are filled to the brim with new mercies that reach far and wide.
Great is His faithfulness through every changing season.
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Thank you, Katie. Very timely words as I just quit my all consuming job to spend full time writing. I know I can chew gum, but self-regulating my days is outside my skill set. Will be drinking deeply of the always new mercies!
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many blessings in this new change, Grace!