Janice Crow

January Reflections 09

New. It’s an interesting word. We hear it everyday, yet do we really know what it means? My best friend’s daughter just had a new baby. (As opposed to those OLD babies we see lying around.) My daughter Jamie bought a new Mazda. Ahhh, the smell of a new car....everybody loves it. The smell of a new baby? Not so much. They’re both “new”, so why the contradiction?

I love to browse through antique stores looking for a “new” old parlor table to stick in my living room. My sisters and I go traipsing through upscale resale shops trying on “new” clothes that have been cast off by someone to whom they were “old”.

We’ve all had clothes mended and handed back to us with the remark, “There.....good as new”.....yeah, except for that big, bumpy seam where it used to be smooth. When Bruce broke his hip on the ice, the doctor emerged from the operating room to gleefully announce that his hip would be “better than new”....that is, if you don’t mind three titanium pins the size of railroad spikes.

As a child I recall being introduced to my “new” teacher. She had gray hair twisted into a braid around her head, Coke-bottle glasses down on her nose and she smelled of what I realize now was some sort of liniment. I know I wasn’t the smartest kid in class, but she sure didn’t look “new” to me.

There is obviously something odd about the word “new”. It’s not the same for everyone. My old pair of shoes is magically “new” to someone in Bangladesh who has none. My son’s looking for a new job, which means he’s lost the old one which was “new” to him not all that long ago. I had a thought years ago …an old inspiration… which resulted recently in a song that’s “new”.

We’ve all heard that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. We’ve all been the new kid on the block or had to face a whole new ball game. We may have had to turn over a new leaf or needed a new lease on life. That all sounds so negative. Then again, we all want to break new ground or breathe new life into something that’s fading, and we want to do it all while we live in a new house and drive a new car. There’s the positive.
No doubt about it, there is a lot to be said for the “new”. This past year has not been a great one around my house, so I’ll be glad to slough off the old and begin a new year…provided that 2008’s mishaps were not just a primer for 2009.

The things that come my way this next year may be as pleasant as new car scent or may have more in common with a diaper-clad newborn. Either way, there’s one thing I can be assured of and that’s the promise of Lamentations 3:22-23 that tells me God’s mercies and compassion are NEW every morning. That means that whatever comes our way, whatever we need he’s made preparation for each of us individually for every single day, according to whatever it brings. His mercies will be as new for you as they are for me. Isn’t it comforting to know......there are no hand-me-downs with God?

Have a wonderful and blessed NEW YEAR!

Janice