Ends get a lot of attention.  There’s graduation, there’s the winner’s circle at the end of a race, there’s the final score of a game won or lost, there’s death… But this January is the beginning of 2013 and I’ve been considering – trying to get vision as to what I should aim at in the future. Five years from now, what am I going to wish I had started today?  I put up a facebook status today “starting something is the first important step to finishing well”. My husband asked me where I got that but really, it came from my own head as I was considering beginnings. Sounds like a famous quote doesn’t it?  I might not have been the first one to think of it.

Four years ago Julie, who thought of herself as not having accomplished much,  began a course of study to be a veterinarian. Yesterday she learned she had passed her medical boards.  She has only a few more months before beginning to practice. That beginning four years ago was pretty important.  It was also challenging and a step out of the comfort zone for her.  

And forty years ago this January I got married to Dennis. That was the beginning of a covenant promise that we have worked at keeping, not always perfectly or happily, but it has provided the framework of everything else that our lives have produced. I am glad we began.

Some of my favorite words on beginnings:
Job 8:7 Your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be.
Psalm 111:10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and discipline.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (How true and how exciting.)

I am a little bit afraid of asking God what I should begin this year. I say “asking God” because I believe the things he gives people to begin have lasting value, eternal value even.  And I believe He has certain things in mind for me specifically.  Those things might be really hard to do, or take a lot of time, or money but they are going to be the things that matter. I am more afraid of not beginning something like that. that is why I’m asking, listening, keeping my spiritual eyes and ears open, considering what might begin in 2013.