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Topic: Beginnings (05/31/04)
TITLE: A New Beginning or Life Continuing? By B Price 06/05/04 |
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Do we consider life a new beginning or just a continuance of a life already in existence? In order to answer this question we have to start at the very beginning. The word “beginning” means a starting place, first part, the first cause; source; origin. In the beginning, God created heaven and earth. After the earth was established, God created man and woman, in his own image, and called them Adam and Eve. As time went on, they started their own family. This was the beginning of the family system as we know it.
From the first breath of life until we die, our lives are filled with what we consider “beginnings”. We consider the first day of school “the beginning of our education”. We consider our wedding the “beginning” of our married life. The list of beginnings could go on and on. Each new beginning is filled with many life lessons which mold and shape us into the adults we become.
The question I want to ask, “Are these new beginnings or are they actually just continuous stepping stones from previous generations?” After a person grows up and gets married, that couple may decide to start a family. We then begin molding and shaping a second generation with ideas and morals that may not always be our own. A lot of times we use the same ideas and impressions that our parents instilled on us. We watch our children grow and mature, then send them out into the world to live their own lives. We hope and pray that they will not make the same mistakes that our parents warned us about. We then stand back and watch to see if our lessons will change the pattern.
Back in October 2003, I was attending my aunt’s funeral. I realized that my aunt was the last of her generation. My cousin, who lived with her mother all her life, is at the beginning of a life she may not be fully prepared for. While listening to the preacher, I started reflecting over my own mother’s life. I began remembering details I had been told all my life about the things my mother and her sister had endured in their childhood. The things that happened to them left marks that got passed on to their children. Now I am asking myself if the marks that were left on me by my mother are now being passed on to my daughter. Baggage in the negative form tends to get passed down from generation to generation. Just when I am comfortable with the idea that I am living my own life, in reality I am passing my mother’s baggage on to her granddaughter.
Once we realize this, how do we take it from there? We start each day with a new beginning. We climb out of bed and prepare ourselves to make the most of each day. We acknowledge that through God all things are possible. We then give thanks to the Lord for whatever He sends our way, knowing that he is our new beginning. When death comes knocking to take us home, it may be our last breath on this earth, but I know it is a beginning of a life in the realm of our Father’s world.
I realize now that life is a new beginning if we begin at the right place, and that place is God. I now spend my time writing stories so that I can share my life’s lessons with others. I am praying that my stories might touch someone and show them the things that I have learned.