Did you listen to that welcome to our new year by that energetic group of kids? Wow! Music is wonderful for our souls and we were just joyfully ushered anew into 2022. 

The kids told us to let the old memories go and start gathering new ones. That is a special message to us as Christians. Read the scripture passage below from Corinthinans. 

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

There are more references in the Bible to focusing on the new and not looking back but forward. Remember that whole pillar of salt moment in the Old Testament? Someone looked back. Uh-oh! 

I know from being a pianist that if I make a mistake while playing, and believe me it happens, my bigger mistake is to keep looking back to where I made the mistake or to continue thinking about the mistake I made while I try to continue playing. As an accompanist you never want to stop playing! Looking back at my mistakes is a sure way to make many more bigger mistakes or to just become overwhelmed and stop completely. This is something any musician has to learn to overcome. (Now, we have to stop in practice to practice, so, all you budding musicians out there, I’m on to you!) In fact, as musicians we are always supposed to be looking ahead of where we actually are in the music. We are trained to focus on what is ahead. 

So to me, that scripture does not mean forget all your memories or things you have done! I believe it is saying remember but don’t become consumed so much by the past that you forget that each day and each moment ahead of us is an opportunity to become a new creation in Jesus Christ.

Welcome to this new year and this new moment! Any moment is a good moment to renew and refresh your relationship with God. He is there, ready to make you a new person in Him. Shake off that old, as those young ones did so joyously in the video, and let’s look forward to walking into a new light this year full of opportunities to learn, to grow, to be kind, to share, to be thoughtful, to love, to forgive, to pray, to be compassionate, to commit and on and on. These aren’t resolutions I’m talking, we all know how long they last, but rather it’s transfigurations I’m talking about. There is only one Master of that! God. 

I think I’m a bit silly in this New Year because all I can think of right now as an invitation to step out anew is in the Wizard of Oz. That old Wicked Witch of the West scared and caused fear to come upon me so when I was a small child. Now I know, we don’t need to be afraid! You are joyously permitted to dance your way into the new. 

Watch the short clip below and Happy New Year to you all! 

~Shauna Weil