September 2024

“I’ve wiped the slate of all your wrongdoings.”

Isaiah 44:22 The Message

Greetings!

What are your best loved memories of September?

Back to school? Back to church? Back to friends not seen since June?

For many people in the Northern Hemisphere, September marks the year’s beginning. New classes, new clothes, and new resolutions.

British pupils wear school uniforms so there are no fashion outfits to look forward to. But I eagerly anticipated the handing out of fresh exercise-books. “Rough books” with no doodles. Subject notebooks with no disparaging remarks. No red “X’s”!

What a joy! Every September, we began anew. All evidence of failure or faded interest had gone in the bin. In their place, were clean white pages that held endless promise.

“I will not scribble! I will not skive off! This year, I will succeed!”

A promise of a fresh start that God makes to us every moment of every day.

“I’ve wiped your slate clean,” God tells us through Isaiah.

“Your mistakes and muck-ups are all deleted.”

What a joy! Our wrongs are erased. Our faith wobbles were never even recorded.

God doesn’t do red “X’s”!

(Making amends to someone we hurt is, of course, not dependent on ticks or “X’s”.)

This September let’s celebrate “fresh slate” month and every “fresh slate” minute of this month. All 43,200 of them!

God’s blackboard monitor has her hands full!

Buy yourself a new notebook. Jot down prayers, observations, Christmas must-do’s. Every new page is a reminder that God sees only your future promise; past messes have been binned!

Sing it till you believe it. :)

God has blotted them out,

I’m happy and glad and free!

God has blotted them out,

I’ll turn to Isaiah and see.

Chapter forty-four,

twenty-two and three:

God’s blotted them out,

and now I can shout,

for that means me!

May September be the beginning of a year filled with new blessings!

Brenda