God of New Beginnings

It’s a broken world…                                                                                                                    But God is the God of New Beginnings.

During the year I dealt with breast cancer, as I journaled, I ran into this recurring thought “It’s a broken world, but God _______” and that blank would be filled with some way he was working in my life: God of Comfort, God of Healing, God of Surprises. They were all true, but they were not all-encompassing. I kept searching for the ultimate “…but God…” statement.

Then in August, as I recovered from a reconstructive procedure, I was bitten by the quilting bug, and began to produce quilts like a woman possessed. I made seven quilts, four of them queen-sized, in the following months. I relished this new adventure that gave me an identity beyond the “Cancer Gal” tag that seemed to define me. It also filled in the “…but God” statement. Quilting signaled a fresh new beginning in an uncertain world. Whether the cancer came back or not, each day became an opportunity for new experiences, new joy for another day to celebrate life on this planet.

The following year, additional new beginnings presented themselves as I ventured back into the career world as an office manager, published my book, tiptoed into the world of social networking, and started a blog.  I realized that for me the perfect end of that thought is this: “It’s a broken world….But God is the God of New Beginnings.” It’s a powerful statement of hope and opportunity in a fractured universe where life doesn’t always go the way we’d hoped or planned. I love that thought! It gives me encouragement when the world takes a turn I do not like and joy regardless of circumstances.

I toyed with the idea of putting this thought on coffee mugs or other trinkets to share at events, but my son said, “Who wants to drink out of a coffee cup with that statement every morning!” He has a point. While the statement is true, it may sound negative to people outside the context my life as a cancer survivor. Furthermore, it is a true but not all-inclusive description of the world. It is a broken world. But it’s also a beautiful world, a world of opportunity, a fascinating world. I’ve played around with ways to express these sentiments in a more upbeat way:

•  Rain or Shine, God is the God of New Beginnings
• It’s a Fragile/Fascinating/Unpredictable World, but God is the God of New Beginnings
• In a great big world, God is the God of New Beginnings

But, I’m still not quite there. Sometimes, what’s happening in our little corner of the world determines our perspective about what kind of world it is. I invite you to take the thought “It’s a broken world…but God is the God of New Beginnings” and tell me how you would rearrange it. It will be fun to see your many perspectives. One word of caution though, this site is rated PHG – Please Honor God! Other than that, have fun with this exercise!