New. New. New.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" II Corinthians 5:17


***


Here's something I've never told you. 

Back in my pathetic, depressing, whiner-par-excellence Nevada Years, I used to, when I was super-depressed, drive our little white Acura out on the tumbleweed-rolling desert roads. I'd play over and over one cassette tape by a well-known Christian recording artist who'd gone through divorce and then proceeded to make an album full of sad, depressing songs reflecting his pain. 

(I don't recommend that.)

There was such a hopelessness about that cassette! Off-hand I don't recall any songs which said Jesus would pull him through this, instead, the songs sounded like he (the artist) was on his emotional deathbed, breathing his last (a song specifically mentioned that).

Well, I'd drive, alone, along the desert roads and the sad, peeling houses with only an occasional leaning tree and I'd listen to that music as though I was sucking the juice out of a snowcone. And I'd come home from those solemn, lonely drives feeling worse than I had when I'd set out on them. 

Please tell me I'm not the only sorry, pathetic Christian who, for months, has ever done anything that pointless!

Well, eventually we moved here to what I like to call The Land of the Living (no offense to my wonderful, brave friends who still live in Nevada) and God began to pull me out of the depths of despair (as Anne of Green Gables would call it).

But I had to re-learn just about everything.
I had to start over, regroup, and unlearn much.
I had to do and learn things a whole new way.


And I had to throw away that worn-out, depressing cassette.

Basically, I had to become a new person. It was a step-by-step and day-by-day process which God, Himself, took me through, teaching me to listen to His Holy Spirit way more often than to my emotions. 

And behold, He has made all things new. Now there is great joy. 

I drive around on these old-fashioned streets and listen to songs which make my heart try to crawl up into my throat--and the squeezing of it all brings tears to my eyes, so much so, that I tease myself that, really, one should not drive around town when ones eyes are flooded and dripping tears of joy.



******