As I have posted in several of my other stories, I take words at their original face value meaning. The other day a phrase popped into my mind. “This is the first day of the rest of your life”. Anyone who has made a mistake in their life that might have caused more than minor ramifications would recognize that phrase to mean exactly what it sounds like. Starting over new from the place where the mistake was first made.
It got me to thinking of all of the places I had made mistakes, and there were plenty of them. If I had started over each time I don’t think I would have gotten very far. Remember, I am using these words in their literal sense. Which of course would be impossible to do since we can’t in the literal sense start over right? If the mistake were words that a person didn’t mean to say, they can’t take them back. They can apologize, and make amends to whomever they had insulted or hurt with those words. But they can’t pretend that the other person never heard them. If the mistake was a car accident, you could repair the car, and move on, but starting over would be moving back in time like the mistake never happened.
Believe me, it is not easy taking words at their original meaning. I am not sure why I find myself pondering thoughts like this, but I have learned to allow the thought process to follow through and have been at times, quite surprised by the outcome.
So, realistically I can only use myself here as an example, let me continue forward with my thought processing. I have experienced “this is the first day of the rest of my life”.
When my son and I moved south, I was truly was starting over again. But was I? My son was still 12 years old, and it felt like I was only trading one hardship for another. Was I making a mistake? There was no way of knowing because I could not look into the future. I was traveling an unfamiliar path. And I believe that is where the starting over comes from. We turn away from our mistakes. This means we change the direction of our journey. I understand that starting over means we do not make the same choices that had created the mistake we are turning away from. But then wouldn’t that mean that we have to remember the mistake? Absolutely! It can be pretty easy to forget what we have done if we “start over” each time. Almost as if there were no consequences to face.
Many years have gone by since that original move. There were so many things I learned along the way. One of the first ones upon arriving at my brother’s house was probably the most important one. Although, it would take a few years before I realized that.
After settling in, my brother noticed that while I may have acquired a job, found a place to live, and all-around got my son and I settled into our new life. I was not calming down. I was still a nervous wreck about everything. Any new decision I made was with someone else advising me. I just couldn’t seem to make any decisions at all. My brother suggested I talk with a gentleman from our church. His career was in counseling people. I am so very glad that I listened to my brother and set up an appointment.
It was a relief talking with this man because I didn’t have to leave God out of the conversation.
After a couple of meetings, he was able to get a pretty good idea of what was going on inside of me. He defined that what was bothering me was that I was confusing a couple of definitions of what my anxiety was all about. I kept saying that I just wanted to: “get there”. Every time I tried to explain what I meant by those words, I would say something like, “I just want to make the correct decisions with raising my son” or, “it always seems like I start out doing the right things, and then all of sudden I am in some kind of trouble.” Finally, he said to me, “What you are describing by saying, “get there”, is the end of the journey. In this case that would mean death, and already in Heaven. You, like all of us, are on a journey. That journey is called life.” Then he got up from his desk and started gathering small items from it. Items like his stapler, a small notepad, tape dispenser, and a few pencils and pens. He moved around to the front of his desk where I could see what he was doing. He very meticulously laid all these items in a straight row on the floor. When he was done, he turned to me and said, “This is a representation of your journey’s path. It is now nice and straight, everything neat and tidy. This is the path that God has led you to. What you are not realizing is that there is someone else who knows about this path. And while you are no longer an interest to him, you are a threat if left alone. So, while he can’t harm you, he can certainly disrupt your life.” And with that, he walked along this very straight and narrow path he set up and began to nudge things out of place. “Satan will do whatever it takes to keep you distracted, to keep you from witnessing to others about the goodness of God. He will keep you in fear, distrust, uncertainty because it will keep you from praying to God as well. It will keep you distracted, which might cause you to keep silent or miss an opportunity to share your faith with a person who may cross your path someday that needs to hear about the Word of God. Not to mention that one of the best ways to witness to someone is to live your life to the fullest, giving God the credit. When unbelievers who are looking for hope SEE God at work in someone’s life, the Word becomes much more alive and so much clearer to understand”
He had my attention. These were all the emotions I had been feeling and couldn’t shake. Moving down south had felt like I was tucking my tail between my legs and running in shame. Once I had arrived, for a solid month or more, I kept receiving confirmation after confirmation that moving there was not a mistake. No, this was a path orchestrated by God. Now it made perfect sense to me. To keep me distracted would certainly put me back in the gutter emotionally. I would most certainly start to make the same or similar mistakes again. And to make it even worse, I might miss the opportunity to help someone else.
So, in truth, I was not starting all over again. I was given the choice to continue with my journey, not start it over again.
When I hear or read the words: “This is the 1st day of the rest of your life”, I now interpret them to mean: “This is the first day of the rest of my journey.” Or even better, the rest of my adventure.