Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Every ending is a beginning

Sometime last fall I read an article that made a reference to the  idea the “every ending is a beginning”.

I thought it was  some type of  Christian   article -  perhaps in one of the daily items I receive or in one of the  blogs I follow   -- but I’m not sure.

The phrase stuck with me even though I didn’t remember where I saw it. After some searching around  I found  an article  “Beginnings in Endings: Mary Did You Know?” by Phil Ware published, December 23, 2012  ,  in Heartlight  (an on-line magazine) .

 However, it seemed to me that it had been earlier in the year and there was some reference to the source of the phrase so I  "GOOGLEd" it and found these references (none of which seemed to fit my original recollection)… SIGH.
However, most of them are relevant to where I (think) I'm heading in this (hopefully not de-railed) train of thought.

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”   Maria Robinson (see http://www.maria-robinson.com/)

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make and end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from”. T. S. Eliot  ( Four Quartets - #4 Little Gidding)

“Every beginning has an end and every end has a new beginning, don't worry, broken soul, life will one day come to an end. ”   Santosh Kalwar 


 A number of books on Amazon.com   that come up if you search  "Beginning ending"

  “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning,..” Ecclesiastes 7:8 (ESV)

I mention this because it was this phrase that “inspired” the title of “Beginnings and endings” which I have used in 3 of 4 of  my  2013 posts and  (as you’ve no doubt noticed is the title of this post).

When I (re)started – made a new beginning on my blog on January 23, I planned (without “promising”) to publish every (week) day. Well I did OK up until yesterday when the number of errands on our list  kept me busy for most of the day and then I needed to rest from all that activity.

To-day was more errands and tomorrow we travel to Sudbury for a consult with Dr. Barg so I’ll probably not have a post then. So I decided I would publish something today – even if it is incomplete.

I mentioned in Part 1 of “Beginnings and endings”, my 2013 “theme song”

I will live today in the moment. I will live today as if it were my last day here on this earth and I will dream and plan today for tomorrow because “Today is the first day of the rest of my life; I will rejoice and be glad in it”   (cf. Psalm 118:24-KJV)

I have  talked about a lot of endings – including the BIG ending of my streak of “no major health problems” – For the next few posts I will talk about the beginning of this new journey of  living with a (hopefully) fully repaired “broken”  heart and how it fits with my "theme song".
 
Even though I'm confident that I will come through this -- this news has renewed the thought that we need to be prepared and to live each day asking  ourselves "What if this were my last day. Tim McGraw captured that thought in his  song "Live like you were dying".

 
 
As  I begin this journey I want to share the  preparations  being made "for the rest of the journey" which I hope is a long one,  about living in the moment  and savoring the good things ("stopping to smell the roses")  and  "living as if I were  dying"  and take you through
I want to share  my thoughts  “go under the knife”, get a new valve and begin a new journey of living.
One thought I’ll leave you with for today is that Linda & I were talking and I said  I thought this was  harder for her than for me.  She  didn’t agree but I still think its'true.
Why? She  is very concerned about the amount of pain that I will experience – and that’s a HUGE concern for her – she knows about pain – childbirth and her nursing experience has seen to that. She wants to be "strong for me" and that she's good at and what's making it difficult is that I'm not able  to be her "rock" and help her be strong. 

However,that's not the reason I say it's more difficult for her. Although she tries to cover it up her biggest fear and burden right now is the thought that I might not make it. And, if I put myself in her position that’s  “GI-NORMOUSLY”  HUGE. 

The way I look at it if I’m feeling PAIN that’s good – I’m still around and on my way to recovery.  If I’m not feeling pain I’m not here to be dealing with anything – and she is left to deal with a lot – so it’s seems she has the larger burden .
That's what  makes me the saddest and troubles me the most – even though it’s out of my control.
I pray for her the message of Psalm 27 (see January 25th post) if our plans for the best turn out to be a need to face the worst.

God Bless
Charlie

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