Have you ever gone through life wishing you could start over? You wish you could live a certain moment again and do something different. I have and I think a lot of people have too. One of the beautiful things about being human is that we are not perfect. We make mistakes; some more costly than others. Sometimes a fresh start is all we need to move forward. It is our best shot to help us rectify those mistakes from the past.
Getting a fresh start isn’t as easy as it sounds. Remember that saying; what goes around comes around? I find that it is true maybe like 80% of the time. Somehow the past always comes back to haunt you. Imagine a young woman who lived a promiscuous life as a teenager/ young adult. She finds God at some point in her life or something defining happens to her that makes her reconsider her ways. She decides to turn her life around. She finds a good man, gets married, has kids and everything seems to be going smoothly. Then an ex from the past shows up. Or maybe it was someone she didn’t know but the person knows the old her all too well. And in a blink of a second this new life she has created is almost at the brink of crashing. What a disaster!
I wonder to myself; should it really be like this? Should we judge people by their past and not their present self and if I am allowed to stretch it a bit further, by their future self? Do we have a right to make it harder for people to start on a clean slate? I’ve needed so many fresh starts in my life that I have lost count; fresh start with love, fresh start with God and so on. I have made mistakes – serious errors of judgement but I want to rise above those mistakes and move forward. However there is this fear of condemnation. I feel if I own up to these mistakes that will just be the end. Then I hear of people who have made worse mistakes than I have and they are there; still going strong, still standing despite the fierce force of judgement against them. They give me hope; hope that I can make a fresh start too concerning these mistakes.
If you need a fresh start, go ahead and have one. You don’t need anybody’s permission. I know it is easier said than done. Will this fresh start be easy? No. Will it completely erase your past? No. What it does is this – it gives you a chance to correct those mistakes. Not all mistakes can be corrected back to the original state. For example a mistake that leads to pregnancy cannot be corrected so that you are suddenly not pregnant again (except if you take the abortion route which is another mistake entirely). But do you know you can have a fresh start despite this? You can choose to rise above the stigma and live a godly life. You can choose to be the best mother you can ever be to your child. The decision lies with you. Don’t let fear allow you to continue to toss and turn in the bed of your mistakes. Go ahead and get that fresh start.
2014 is going to be over in a few days. The New Year brings hope of a new beginning. It is a perfect time to start over; to be that person you ought to be. Have you found yourself on the wrong career path, now is the time to change over and start afresh. Yes it may mean being without a job for some time but it also means getting into the career of your true passion which brings greater fulfilment. I pray that God gives you the courage to get the fresh start you need. More importantly, I pray that He gives you the strength to overcome the storms and challenges you will face as you begin this journey.
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