ALL THINGS NEW!

“‘There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away!’ He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ He said to me, ‘It is done, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.’” Rev 21:4-7

Our precious grandmother at the beginning of each year would pray that the Holy Spirit would lift a passage from the Bible that would become her year verse. It would be the foundation for all other faith building for that specific year. She would pray upon the passage and the Holy Spirit never let her down. I began doing the same in 2008 and true to form the Holy Spirit each year has placed a common theme passage that guides my prayer life through that year.

This past January I felt the passage above was my 2010 Year Verse and began praying towards that end. At first glance I thought it was about the probability of my dad’s passing and the end of cancer in our family. The newness would be health, restoration to a former life and medical wholeness in the family. While that has occurred, my year verse has marked a much deeper passing. It has marked a new heart, a new freedom and a new surrender in a difficult and unrelenting 20 year relationship that continues to wound, injure and imprison.

As of this day, God has set me free! It is done, it is over! The stone has been rolled away from my dark tomb and life is being resurrected. But my life will have a new spiritual body, a new spiritual sole with a new Spirit. A Spirit more closely aligned with Christ with more capacity to love, to forgive, to endure. There have been many things I have been taught through this experience along with many things I have been shown about myself that I detest. But through it all I have been loved by God, carried by God, taught by God, rebuked by God and released by God – praise Him!

What I have learned this year are a few things:

We cannot forgive if we have never experienced wrongs.
We cannot live for Him if we have never died to ourselves.
We cannot experience life if we have never felt death in our hearts.
There are not beginnings until we experience endings.
We cannot experience true joy until we have felt pain.

ALL THINGS NEW!