What comes next?

With Christmas over we begin looking forward to New Year’s Eve, counting down to the midnight hour waiting for the second hand to tell us a new year has arrived. After all the ballgames and parades of New Year’s Day are over and the mess is all cleaned up from our parties, we begin to think about the things we need to get done in the coming year, some call these “things” resolutions, having done that we sit back and if we are not careful depression begins to wind its way into and around our mind like a kudzu vine takes over when it is left untended. If we don’t check the depression and let down that happens it starts a process in us that can become, what I refer to as a broken mind. It can happen when you let yourself become so stressed over things at hand that you begin to block out the things that hurt too bad to try to resolve.

This year is going to be very different for me. I have been the 24/7 caretaker for years, first for my dad and then both and finally for the past eighteen months, my mother, so now I have to re-invent myself, a little stronger than a resolution I think, it is a paradigm shift for real. It’s only been three days so of course I am still listening for the sounds that signaled a need for help or a potty call, being startled at the empty space in front of the window where she had a view of the outside from her bed, although she wasn’t interested in anything out there, all she wanted to do was to “go home”. I wonder if she has now found what she was looking for. One thing she did enjoy this year was looking at the three white trees glowing with blinking lights that dance to the beat of music, she kept saying it was the most beautiful she had ever seen. But that is all over and now I am left with the need to find a use for myself that is actually a good reason to live. For now I think I need to remember 1 Peter 5:7 “Casting all your care on Him for He cares for you.”

I have heard of people who had a “broken heart”, I have even heard it said that a person “died of a broken heart”, that must be a terrible sadness. We “give our heart to the Lord”, the “heart of the King is in the hand of the Lord”, it is said that the “heart is desperately wicked who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9, the Psalmist said, “Try my reigns (heart) and see if there be any wicked way in me” Psalm 139:24, you get a “heart ache”. We used to sing a song about broken hearts: “He’s the healer of broken hearts, he’ll mend your shattered dreams, he’ll pick up the threads of your broken life and weave them together again. To your soul he will bring peace and joy, your friend indeed he’ll be, he’s the healer of broken hearts, this Jesus of Galilee.”

How closely does this relate to the mind? The heart of a matter is our emotional reaction, the mind, however, is the calculator, the part of us that thinks and decides whether we will or will not serve the Lord, if we will try to do His perfect will.

It is said that if you give a person an inch, they will take a mile. Whoever said that must have been referring to Satan himself. 1Peter 5:8 “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”  Hebrews 12:15 “Looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.”

When we allow bitterness, jealousy, revenge, hate, prejudice, anger of any kind dwell in our mind, as we see in this scripture, not only does it harm us, but hurts, defiles those who associate with us! Proverbs 18:21 “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Proverbs 23:7 “As he thinks in his heart, so is he.”

We know that our heart doesn’t think, so we are talking about the mind. You have to keep your mind fresh, washed in the Word! My dad was 95 when he died and his mind was still as sharp as he was making the transition from life to death as it ever was. I believe it is because he sat at his computer for hours studying the Word of God and preparing sermons to give on Wednesday nights at church.

Ephesians 4:26-27 “Be angry, and do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.”

What I see in this scripture is that God knows there will be times of anger and other emotions that are not so good for us, but He is saying, “Don’t dwell in them, don’t let the sun go down before you make things right!” That, to me, means that every night we go to sleep with a clear conscience, having made peace with people around us and by giving all our cares to Him, for He cares for us! So whether you have a broken heart or a broken mind, we know that He is the great physician and can make us brand new!

So 2015 is a new beginning for me and it can be for you also, have hope, joy, and keep your mind washed in the Word! Happy New Year!