Between “Once Upon a Time” and “Happily Ever After”

It’s January, the start of a new year. From November, the year races to the last chapter. Ceremonies and celebrations, Christ and candlelight. The end of the year accelerates into a blur with social lives as overstuffed as our bellies and bank accounts straining like a jolly old elf under a massive sack of presents. As the year grows weary, so do we. Then suddenly, with the crack of first fireworks and the blowing of horns, we’re in the beginning of a story again. Optimism throws open its arms and laughs with “Once Upon a Time.” We are free, and anything–even “Happily Ever After”–is possible.

It’s January, the start of a new year. From November, the year races to the last chapter. Ceremonies and celebrations, Christ and candlelight. The end of the year accelerates into a blur with social lives as overstuffed as our bellies and bank accounts straining like a jolly old elf under a massive sack of presents. As the year grows weary, so do we. Then suddenly, with the crack of first fireworks and the blowing of horns, we’re in the beginning of a story again. Optimism throws open its arms and laughs with “Once Upon a Time.” We are free, and anything–even “Happily Ever After”–is possible.

I believe we humans are drawn to these beginnings because it’s the story deep in our souls. Our world is not as it should be, and neither are we. When death entered the world, it permeated it. We are surrounded by the death of dreams and expectations, the disenchantment of discovering our flaws. There’s death of relationships and of possibilities. Closed doors, closed minds. Missed goals, withered optimism, abandoned innocence. We stagger under disappointment and our souls ache for a new beginning.

And we get one. No, not New Year’s–that’s just an echo. Our true fresh beginning is in Christ. From the time we encountered Him, He brought newness of life. He wiped our slate clean by washing away our sins. We were free from the past; we had a do-over. We were at the beginning again, “Once Upon a Time”.

If it stopped there, the story would turn into the same old plot as quickly as an abandoned resolution. Salvation would be an event, rather than the beginning of a new journey. But the God remembers we’re dust, helpless when left to ourselves. He gave us the Holy Spirit as a guide for our journey, and all the power and all the spiritual blessings we need to live out our new story, if we will.

So here’s my question to myself and to you: how will we write our life stories between “Once Upon a Time” and “Happily Ever After”? Will we live out the newness with power and focus? Or, like a protagonist who’s forgotten who he really is, will we return to our old plot?

I pray that in 2011, we will grasp hold of our story and live each day with the faith and power given to us. And when we do, our lives will be tales that others will read and be inspired to discover their own “Once Upon a Time”.