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By Dean Kelly

A young man reaches out his hand and takes a young woman’s hand. He thinks, rightly so, that she has never looked so beautiful. They stand before the preacher and make promises before God to love each other until death parts them. It is a new beginning, and it is beautiful.

A newborn infant is laid into his Momma’s hands. She checks to see if he has all his toes and all his fingers, to see if he is as perfect as she feels he is. The sweet little body is pressed against her chest, holding him for the first time from without and not within. Life that began about nine months ago has finally entered its new beginning, and it is beautiful.

There are the first words, the first steps, the first skinned knees, the first – well first everything. Years pass by and every day seems to bring another new beginning of some type, some of them joyous, some sad. But, as life is lived with each new beginning, it is beautiful.

A woman comes up out of the water. Her hair is wet, but her smile is broad. She has acted on a deep conviction of faith (Mark 16:16; John 8:24; Hebrews 11:6). She has confessed that Jesus is the Son of God (Romans 10:9-10; Matthew 10:32-33; Acts 8:37). 

Godly sorrow has caused her to be willing to change her mind and her life to conform to the will of God, – she repented (Luke 13:3, 5). She has been baptized unto the remission of her sins (Acts 2:38), to have her sins washed away (Acts 22:16), to be added by God (Acts 2:47) to the church that Jesus built (Matthew 16:18). 

She is actively meeting Jesus at the cross in a new beginning –  and it is beautiful!

Dean Kelly is minister at Highland Home Church of Christ.