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  • The depths and variations of love are wide. In February, we’ll post love vignettes on different types of biblical love. Delighted to feature “Quanny” Ard who shares, “As long as individuals have existed, the concept of self-love has existed.” We can’t love others well if we’re struggling to accept and love who we are. Embrace the lovely being you are. #philautia #loveyourself #loveothers ❤️ @pexels photo
  • On Saturdays, our house was filled with music – R&B oldies and Jamaican music played loudly throughout the house. The sound of housework was a constant also – cooking, cleaning, mopping, dusting, and organizing. We talked as we worked, and sometimes we bickered. Once chores were completed, TV noise increased again as we would watch movies in my bedroom together because that’s where the DVD was.  #family #emptynesters Stop by Dahlia Collective today...
  • You failed. Again. You’re struggling with  behaviors which hinder your spiritual walk. Take heart, love...The beauty of #redemption is the grace which covers us when we miss the mark. That’s the beauty of a #cleanslate. @alicewilliam86 takes us through Psalm 51. Check us out today. ❤️🙏🏻
  • “It pains me to say this as someone who appreciates a plan and a purpose, but sometimes you have to take change as it comes. And sometimes it comes unannounced. Sometimes it’s a new beginning you initiated, wanted, or expected, and sometimes it’s not.
Whether it’s a job change, a change of location (or both, in my case), a relationship status update, a fresh taste of freedom after being incarcerated, or the adjustment that comes with becoming a parent, new beginnings can be tough territory.
Both my first day of college and, four years later, my first day at a new job in a new city where I was living alone for the first time were a combination of joy, excitement, uncertainty, and fear. 
The challenges of new beginnings are uniquely able to transform us, bring a complex type of joy to us, and even make us question every decision we’ve ever made. Live link via profile.
#newbeginnings #vulnerability @shansometimes writes on new territories. Photo Credit: Reshot
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  • It was Lucy, the popular character from the Chronicles of Narnia series who held on to Aslan’s words: “Courage, dear heart,” the lion whispered.  Courage reminds me of a similarly-spelled word: Coraje.

In Spanish, coraje means anger or frustration. Enough anger can propel the human heart to action, regardless of one’s circumstances. Inaction breaks the human spirit. I tell them to take risks in our classroom, and they do. #tolerance #urbaneducation #resilience
  • We waited for the grand spectacle of creation that happens every single day: a simple sunrise. The Wonder of #Sunrise by Alice William.
  • We think we can outrun our fears and responsibilities if we keep our lives moving at a rapid pace. Perhaps if we fill up our schedule with appointments, we won’t feel the emptiness that remains like a crater in our souls. If we have enough projects and parties, we think conviction of sin won’t be able to find and knock at the door of our hearts and we won’t notice our separation from God. @shansometimes is today’s contributor! Photo by Anna O on Reshot. #Rest #descansando #verano #enneagram
  • Get out there ladies. Enjoy each day because the sands of time await no one. “What will you do with your one precious life?” #joiedevivre

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You are here: Home / Lifestyle / What No One Tells You About New Beginnings by Shannon Whitehead
Lifestyle, vulnerability

What No One Tells You About New Beginnings by Shannon Whitehead

I always dialed the number when I was about two miles away from South Boulevard.

The conversation always began with “Hey, Shannon” when he recognized my voice and ended with, “Got it, Shannon—see you soon!”

It wasn’t a family member or even a friend on the line, but the manager of a restaurant down the street from the apartment I’d lived in for almost five years. A few minutes later, I’d walk in to see his smiling face and newsboy cap that always seemed too old and sophisticated for his young age. I’d go about one mile to my home and enjoy the country-style food that was always good. I always knew it would be. Always.

Memories like this of the comfortable and the familiar remain even as I sit contently in a bright, new stage of life.

When you’ve moved on, you forget that barely anything is comfortable and familiar anymore. Click To Tweet

You might feel lost and scattered as you stare at the blank page of a new beginning. You might feel unprepared to navigate what it’s like to be new again. But you can’t always prepare for the unknown.

It pains me to say this as someone who appreciates a plan and a purpose, but sometimes you have to take change as it comes. And sometimes it comes unannounced. Sometimes it’s a new beginning you initiated, wanted, or expected, and sometimes it’s not.

Whether it’s a job change, a change of location (or both, in my case), a relationship status update, a fresh taste of freedom after being incarcerated, or the adjustment that comes with becoming a parent, new beginnings can be tough territory.

Both my first day of college and, four years later, my first day at a new job in a new city where I was living alone for the first time were a combination of joy, excitement, uncertainty, and fear.

The challenges of new beginnings are uniquely able to transform us, bring a complex type of joy to us, and even make us question every decision we’ve ever made.

When you start over, it’s easy to forget why everything feels uncomfortable—especially if you’re happy with your new circumstances. But everything is new and so are you.

You’re suddenly the new person at work, at church, and at social events when you used to be the one everyone knows. You’re faced with the strange nuances of newness. You have to become known again in an environment or situation where you barely know anyone or anything.

The fear rises up that people who don’t yet know you won’t like you once you start being yourself. The insecurities about whether you’ll be any good at your new venture arrive and start knocking.

You realize you have to take relational risk in a new beginning. There’s a chance that the adjustment won’t be an easy one and the connections won’t be natural, fruitful, or lasting at first.

And in order to eventually turn your new beginning into a comfortable setting, you step out into that shallow water anyway. That’s when you find out that vulnerability is required.

The hard facts are that this is new for you and you’ll always feel new if you don’t let yourself be known. Even if vulnerability is easy for you (it’s not for me), the chance of rejection still lingers.

And in order to eventually turn the fresh into the familiar, you open the door, pick up unknown passengers, and start navigating this new journey anyway.

You’ll see that the days pass and life has to go on, even if your discomfort hasn’t ceased. Everything about you has to move and get on with it. I never moved to a new place because I thought I could hide my pain in a suitcase.

I’ve had enough new beginnings to know that it comes with you. When you find yourself facing a fresh start, your willingness to heal has to come too. Your development and sanctification continue.

Maybe your new beginning isn’t as beautiful or breezy as you hoped for and you’re fighting back regret and illogical expectations. Maybe you’ve watched other people get engaged and move forward while you’re breaking up and moving on. Maybe you’ve seen people leave the same place you left and get to say proper goodbyes while you’re left with a stack of trauma counseling bills. I get it. I do. And I turned to the master of new beginnings.

In Christ, new beginnings are all around. Many new names were given out in the Old Testament. Every morning, His mercies are new. He makes new creations out of old sinners (2 Cor. 5:17), puts a new song in our mouths (Ps. 40:3), gives new hearts and new spirits, and presents us with another chance to turn away from deceitful sins each time we repent.

It often feels like everything has changed when you have to start over. But nothing about God has changed. He hasn’t changed His mind, left His children, or wavered in faithfulness. The glorious new heavens and new earth still await after our lives on this earth have ended. The discomfort we feel now has an expiration date and until then, God is with us through the challenges of every beginning and every end in this life. That’s the comfort in a new beginning for those who have been made new in Christ.

With every new beginning is a new chance to bring glory to the name of this God who makes all things new. Click To Tweet

The world will see how He brings you through it and how you honor Him. He provides the community you need to walk through life with Him. He sorts through the baggage you brought from the other new beginning that you thought would be the last one. He heals the pain that’s still dragging behind you down this new road.

Wherever you are, through however it feels to be new there, be all there. Be present there. Be yourself there. Be ready to serve there. Be willing to heal there.

In whatever new beginning God has allowed for you, through what He plans to teach you, be faithful there. Be where He’s placed you. He’ll be there, too.

September 30, 2018

« Finding God in The Ordinary Rhythms of Life by Tammy Mashburn
Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God by Alice William »

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