New Beginnings -- Jamie

The task: Disseminate wisdom in 500 words or less concerning a specified topic.

The topic:  New Beginnings.  Starting Over.  A Fresh Start.

Nothing.  I’ve got nothing. 

You see, the thing is, I’m pretty good at starting things, but I lack finishing power.  Not a closer.  I don’t finish well.  As a result of years of not succeeding in completing what I have started, I am now almost too ashamed to begin anything at all.  Why endeavor to try when failure is the only result?

Defeat.  A tool the enemy uses often in my life.  Why try?  Why bother?  Complacency is the way to go! 

At least that’s how I figured it when looking at past journals and reading my pleas for God to give me victory; particularly in the area of my weight.  As if that was the only area in my life that needed attention.   It’s been much easier to leave those less identifiable ugly character traits hidden behind my self-righteousness. 

All my life, I have related my worth to my weight.  Somehow I was more worthy, more loveable, as a thinner person than as one who exhibits to the whole world her lack of control when it comes to food.  “What a fat loser!”  I have many years of worshipping at the idol of me.  The enemy has tricked me into thinking that this area is the only one to define my worth.   

Here’s the deal, though…Jesus is victorious and His Spirit lives in me.  I am His child.  What does it say about my worth if He chose me before time began, then died and rose for me?  Did he die just for the skinny me; The “together” me; The “me” that I work so hard for others to see?

No! He died for the real me.  The at-times-gluttonous, gossipy, hot-tempered, non-filtered, highly opinionated me, who desperately needed a Savior long before ever realizing the God-sized gaping hole in my soul. 

That is where my victory lies! Victory lies in the hands of my Savior.  No, I don’t have permission to gain a ba-jillion pounds, but I don’t have to hang my worth on the scale.  I can gaze into the tender eyes of my Father and bask in the love that pours forth from His eyes bathing me in His righteousness and victory. 

Lamentations 3:  21-23  states: “This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. The Lord’s lovingkindnesses  indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning;  Great is Your faithfulness.

There is hope for new beginnings, fresh starts, and do-overs!