All Things New

Do you remember the pure joy you felt as a child? Maybe it was rolling in the grass, looking at the clouds above and the deepness of the vast blue sky. Maybe you felt it when you were attempting aviation with nothing more than a string and trash bag and you finally got it up in the air. Sometimes, if we are lucky we get to experience that again with our kids. However, even that seems to wear off at times. Having a third opportunity to re-live pure joy, how incredible it has been.
Nina-Li giggled when she felt the wind blow her hair for the first time. Not because she's never felt wind. Because her hair was never long enough to tickle her face. She was elated walking home from one friends house holding hands of two other friends. The simple joy of companionship was bursting from her soul.


Last Sunday for the first time, Nina woke-up crying from a bad dream. I went into her room and she leapt into my arms. Squeezing me so tight. We snuggled in my bed and she insured that my arms were wrapped around her until a bad memory was blotted out with joy once again. As she told a few others of the event, she never mentioned what the dream was about. She told them of her tears and that mommy came in and hugged her. I love the picture above. This was taken at the homeschool Valentine Party. The girls were all singing Ring Around the Rosie. Nina-Li hasn't learned the words to this song, but that didn't get to her. What does she do? She hops in the middle, and belly laughter of JOY comes bubbling out of her.
Do you ever hear those stories of how someone was wrongly accused and sentenced to prison, only to be free years later? Or someone lived in a coma for months or years and finally 'woke-up' one day?
EVERYTHING is NEW again.
This kind of joy, pure joy, is what I see in Nina-Li every single day. The life that is bubbling out of her is certainly a challenge to me and my faith. She is the living, breathing story of our salvation. Through Christ, the old is gone, the new has come. There's no looking back, there's no longing for the things of old again. I wish I had better words to describe the transformation that I have witnessed in Nina-Li's life. To say it is a blessing is putting it mildly. It is life changing. To close, I'd like to leave the words to Steven Curtis Chapman's song: You Make All Things New

You spoke and made the sunrise, to light up the very first day
You breathed across the water, and started the very first wave
It was You
You intoduced Your glory, to every living creature on earth
And they started singing, the first song to ever be heard
They sang for You

You make all things new
You make all things new

Then the world was broken, fallen and battered and scarred
You took the hopeless, the life, wasted, ruined and marred
And made it new

You make all things new
You make all things new
You redeem and You transform
You renew and You restore
You make all things new
You make all things new
And forever we will watch and worship You

You turn winter into spring
You take every living thing
And You breathe Your breath of life into it over and over again

You made the sunrise, day after day after day
But there's a morning coming, when old things will all pass away
And everyone will see

You make all things new
You make all things new
Come redeem and come transform
Come renew and come restore
You make all things new
You make all things new
And forever we will watch and worship You

Now and forever You are making all things new
You're making all things new

Hallelujah...