Eight years ago this month our family moved to New Hampshire. We came brimming with hopes and expectations. In some places our hopes were exceeded. We have watched our children become adults and flourish, we have met many wonderful people, we have learned a great deal, we have come to know God more, and I believe that we have made a good deposit into His kingdom.

There were however also great disappointments and discouragements, which seem to have buried the sheen of all the good things.

These kinds of good things often come with buffeting and other disappointments as well. A year ago I found myself “on hold”. Things were happening that I knew weren’t God’s best, things I knew He couldn’t be pleased with, and yet I also knew that He was very much in the outcome. The wrong things seemed to bury many of the good things, to diminish all the good that transpired.

Nevertheless, change was now upon us. Transition might be something you enjoy, but I am fundamentally whiny about this aspect of life. It seems hard. It might be a mistake! It requires learning new things - what if I can’t do it?

In recent months as direction has been coming, and opportunities are bubbling up, I have been hearing “New Beginnings”. Still, I’m so not a kid anymore, I don’t want to be disappointed, and I keep asking for a sign, a word, something that will keep me from a mistake! I feel like Gideon, seeing the fleece, the signs, the words, and always wanting a little more clarity, a little more confirmation.

The other day when I returned from my July trip to the UK I was, well, whining. God, who has such a sense of humor, told me to go up to New London, the center of commerce and social activities for our lives in New Hampshire, and to take my camera.

It didn’t take a genius to see what He wanted me to see.  This summer the New London merchants have done a special fund raiser and they have all these fabulous “Gnus” on their street fronts.  They are unique and fun, and there are so many of them. (New London is after all a small town.)

As I went up and down Main Street (should I say, “Gnu London”) taking pictures of all the Gnus, I knew that I had my sign about our “new” beginning.” Signs”, really. Here I was, an eight year resident of New Hampshire. We often associate (biblically) the number eight with “new beginnings”. (An octave of music has seven notes, and then a new beginning. There are seven days of the week, and then a new beginning. Of course, I thought. This is our eighth year here, it is a season of new beginnings (actually Gnu beginnings I think), and the signs are all around.

So here we are, on the brink of our Gnu beginning. Suddenly I could see it everywhere. Where my focus had been on what was wrong, all the colorful Gnus shifted me to looking for what was Gnu, what had life, what had potential. Our children, our friends, our neighbors are experiencing new things and they are good. Kids are going back to school, friends have a new business, people are moving to new cities, getting married, someone just got their first new apartment, someone else just got a new car, new friendships are being created, new relationships are being cultivated and old friends are finding their ways back to each. Why didn’t I see it before so clearly? Probably because my focus was on the past and not the future.

It occurs to me today that our nation is also about to celebrate an eight year anniversary that really needs to be a new beginning too, a time to look forward with hope, not back with despair.

Do you need a Gnu beginning? Is a Gnu beginning upon you whether you think you need it or not? If so, please take one of my Gnu pictures for your sign, to remind yourself that hope springs eternal, and there very well may be Gnu things on the horizon for you as well.