I remember my father saying to me when I was in college, someday, you will regret all those things you did to your body. All you athletes think that is all there is to life, but someday, you will realize those broken bones, injuries and damage weren't worth it. Have you ever wished that you could go back and fix something that went wrong. Taken back that word you said or that gesture you made. I wonder to myself, what would I do differently this time. Would I be the same person? What diffenet scars would I carry at this age. Would I have taken better care of my body like my knees, back and ankles. Would I have the same aches and pains or would there be a whole different set of aches and pains. What have I learned at this age, that would make me do things different. Would I have done some things back then, that I am afraid to try now. When I think about my life now, I realize that between Barb and I we have over a hundred years of riding experience between us and yet just a few weeks ago, I dropped my big bike in the parking lot at church. I guess some things won't ever go away completely but my salvation in Christ assures me that I am a new creation. All the things of my past don't matter anymore. It is now what I do going forward that matters.
2 Cor. 5:17 - Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Louisa Fletcher Tarkington 1880-1923 Each new morning we are presented with a day of opportunities to create, to serve, to live; or as the poet and short story writer Louise Fletcher put it, "to begin again." Fletcher surely experienced an intense desire to begin again. Married to the brilliant, but alcoholic novelist and playwright Booth Tarkington in 1902, Louise and Booth had a daughter in 1906. Unable to abide with her husband’s drinking, Louise divorced Booth in 1911, when Laurel was only 5. Laurel developed schizophrenia and died at 16. It was out of this upheaval, that Louise Fletcher wrote the oft-quoted poem. The first and last verse says:
I wish there was some wonderful place
Called the Land of Beginning Again
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches,
And all of our selfish grief
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat by the door
And never be put on again.
Who we were does not define who we are today and many have become that new creation in Christ. Paul was a murderer. Peter was a liar. Matthew a crooked tax collector. Moses murdered someone. Lee Stroebel was an atheist and yet all found their place in the ministry and service of God. Scripture tells us in IIII Corinthians 6:2 - “in a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you, Behold now is the day of salvation." There is a wonderful place where we can begin again and it starts with a choice of who we follow.
Jesus simpy said in Luke 18:22 , "Come and follow me." Beginning again comes as a choice that each of us must make on our own.
Much love
Preach