In the Beginning...

They sit looking up wide eyed at the teacher.  What are these wonders that she is telling them?  Should they believe this?  Should they believe that

'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth'  Gen 1:1

They are at their own soft beginnings.  New soft arms and legs reaching up and out and hearts and minds stretching just as far as they can.

And they accept what she says, what we say sitting around the dinner table feeding both their minds and their bodies so that they can stretch to their fullest.

There is something wonderful about those words:  In the beginning.

Baby-like beginnings.

Birth-pain beginnings.

Beginnings.  A promise of something new.

A promise of something old now gone.

And God was there.

In the beginning, God created.  He created.  He made it with His hands and formed it to its fullest.  The vast emptiness that splayed before Him, He saw.  And it pleased Him to say the words and separate the dark from the light and the land from the sea and the birds of the air from the creatures that crawl along the ground.

He spoke the words and it was.  We were.  In His infinite wisdom, He made us knowing full well what we would do and who we would become.

But to me, it seems like everything I need to know is wrapped up in those words:

In the beginning, God.

That's pretty much all I need to know, isn't it?  He was there in the beginning, which gives me the confidence that I need to know that He will be with me til the end.

When I think of the words, 'In the beginning' I think of power, wonder and fulfillment.

And I look at the faces turned toward me as we circle hands around the table to say grace over our food, and I see the beginnings that are there all around me, and I thank God that He is the ultimate beginning and that He was there and will be there for this and all beginnings we will see.