Starting Over

Starting over at 52 to explore my early childhood and the initiation of my relationship with Jesus. Going back to the first things first from those days when I did not know anything except; Jesus loves you and has a good plan for your life.

It's a bit painful to explore the past, because from the perspective of an adult, you can see so very clearly all your childhood mistakes. You see how in your naivite you were possibly taken advantage of and how you in turn took advantage of others. You remember being abandoned, neglected or ignored. You remember being afraid, cold perhaps and frightened. You remember being vulnerable and powerless.

Of course, the "regrets" do not stop with childhood, they spill over into the teens and then twentys, thirties and so on. Mistakes, defiances, indiscretions even deliberate acts of meanness or unkindness; hidden sin, lies, deceit and hatred. Its all there in only 50 years of life. How can anyone truly believe we are inherently good?


Jesus said..."only God is good." Truer words were never spoken. God is good and human is fallen. We can never be good in and of ourselves, sin will not allow this. Can you imagine the sadness God must have experienced when all that HE declared as good, HIS incredible, beautiful, creation -- HIS (poema) workmanship, work of art went south because someone chose and made it so? This always hits me hardest when someone dies. God never intended there to be death and dying and so, for me, this explains the reason why it feels unnatural. God never intended death for HIS creation, it was a result of sin entering the world; the result of human choice.

So, as the Apostle Paul explained in the letter to the Romans, we are all prisoners of sin and death. We are captives of the flesh, doing what is not good and not doing what is. Our only hope lies in Christ and HIS finished work on the cross. Our encouragment is Romans 8:1-39 which brings me back to Jesus loves you and has a good plan for your life....it seems this is my starting over statement because everything begins and ends with Jesus and HIS great love for me - a human.