A Fresh Start
"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."
Isaiah 43:18-19 (NIV)
Have you ever wanted to disappear?
To leave everything you’ve ever known behind and start all over?
To pause, to recalibrate, to retreat, to reflect?
I began to feel this way in my early twenties. As far back as 15 years ago, I remember conversing with people and saying, “I just want to disappear.”
In 2022, I felt a deep urge for a fresh start, a yearning. Again, I shared this with a few of my friends, and although I was clueless about what that would look like, I just knew I needed to take a break sooner rather than later.
Neck-deep in work, I started planning, thinking, and strategising. I had worked for over a decade back-to-back, taking only a week or so off at a time. I had learnt so much and experienced so much love, hurt, pain, grief, and everything in between. I needed to sit in silence with God and just be, but I was so accustomed to my independence and taking control of my own life. I kept asking myself how to cope with the boredom I knew I would experience with stillness. I had no answer.
That same year, I started experiencing stress-induced panic attacks, something that was quite foreign to me. I remember shutting down my laptop one day and taking a long walk. When I returned home, I declared for the umpteenth time that I needed a fresh start.
By mid-2023, I had termed this period of disappearing a blackout, and the goal was to be unreachable, except to my nearest and dearest, shutting out the world entirely and just being. I was ready to do this by September 2023, but I continued working and working. I had even planned to take unpaid leave, but this was not to be.
In October, after a harrowing experience, I had the mother of all panic attacks and was rushed to the hospital. That was when my experience with antidepressants began. I had a work trip, and a few days later, I experienced another intense panic attack. This occurred again a few days later, and unfortunately, I was on the road when it happened this time. I was rushed to the hospital, and the doctor insisted that I needed to take time off from EVERYTHING.
My first thought was that I should have listened to my body in 2022 when it warned me, or to my spirit when it nudged me. Anyway, laden with copious amounts of medication, I returned home with a sick note and shared it with my boss. The “blackout” did not occur until about nine months later, but this event taught me a crucial lesson in letting go and embracing new beginnings.
In Genesis 12, God told Abraham to leave all that was familiar to him to go to a place that He would show him. That was Abraham’s fresh start.
Jabez sought a ‘fresh start’ and in 1 Chronicles 4:10 prayed to God for one.
Daniel was taken into exile along with other Hebrew boys (Daniel 1), signalling a new beginning for him.
Rahab aligned herself with the Israelite spies because she had heard of God's greatness (Joshua 2) and, as such, gave herself a fresh start.
Saul encountered God on his way to persecute Christians in Damascus (Acts 9), and this for him was his fresh start.
There are countless other examples in the Bible, so many passages that speak of new beginnings and the sheer audacity of hope.
Fresh starts are nothing if not scary; sometimes, the path only becomes clearer with the more steps you take in the new direction.
In our opening verse, the Bible urges us to forget the former things, and as someone who is not keen on regrets, this is one of my favourite passages. Every life event is an experience that comes with a lesson, and focusing on the past is more detrimental than beneficial.
One thing about fresh starts is that no two look alike. I hope and pray that we are sensitive enough to recognise when it is time for ours. I hope we can sit with God and let Him nudge us in the right direction, along the right path.
I pray that even when we stray off the path, He reels us in quickly because we cannot do this life on our own, not without Him.
I pray that we embrace changing seasons, seasons of quietness and joyful noise, seasons of surrender and trust, the beginning of new seasons and the end of old ones.
I pray that we live our lives not in fear, but by embracing the fullness of God and His will for our lives.
Till we speak again, my loves.
May God keep you,
Renee.