Editorial January 4, 1993 Issue

A way to start over

Mary Metzner Trammell

"I wish I could raise my kids all over again," a friend told me recently, "and this time I'd do it right!" Nearly all of us have times when we'd like to start over on things—our marriage, our career, or maybe our whole life. Is it wrong to feel this way?

While such feelings are perhaps understandable, they may actually represent an inner yearning for spiritual rebirth. And this is a Christian demand. Jesus used a dramatic metaphor to describe making a new beginning. He called it being "born again." "Except a man be born again," he told a prominent Pharisee named Nicodemus, "he cannot see the kingdom of God."

Jesus went on to explain that this new birth is an entirely spiritual event. It has nothing to do with turning back the clock and replaying the events of our life with a different set of cards, so to speak, or with the advantage of the wisdom we now have. And it's not a matter of changing external things— getting a new spouse or a new career. Yet appropriate, progressive change is often the outcome of the new birth Jesus spoke of.

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