By Rev. Steven P. Gunther
Life is made up of millions of little moments all strung together. Some moments stand out as incredibly important -- like standing at the altar on your wedding day, graduating from high school, welcoming your first child, or saying goodbye to someone you love -- while others seem mundane and insignificant. After all, we don’t often remember our drive to the grocery store at 4:00 pm on a Thursday, do we?
Some moments remain impressed in our memory because they are happy, but sometimes moments stay with us that carry a lot of pain or even shame. How many of us have lain in bed thinking over past mistakes or embarrassing snafus that we wish we could take back? Sometimes we wish moments could live on forever, and sometimes we wish moments would just go away, and often it seems like we have no control over what kind of moments we experience as we go through the millions of little sprints that come together to make our natural life.
And yet, every single moment holds significance. There is no such thing as a moment in our life that does not leave an impact. In Arcana Coelestia we are told that “...every smallest fraction of a moment of a person's life entails a chain of consequences extending into eternity. Indeed, every one is like a new beginning to those that follow, and so every single moment of the life both of their understanding and of their will is a new beginning.”
This means that every moment of life is significant. Whether we are standing at the altar or driving to pick up McDonalds on our lunch break, every moment entails a chain of consequences that extends into eternity. This means that those happy memories that we have can live on with us forever in some form or another, but it also means that the more challenging memories leave an impact too.
But we don’t need to fear making mistakes or going through difficult times. That passage doesn’t just say that every moment unleashes a chain of consequences -- it also says that every moment is like a new beginning. That means that, no matter what has come before, every moment --however seemingly insignificant -- is an opportunity for us to begin again. Real change takes time, but we make choices every moment of our lives.
So, next time you find yourself lying awake thinking about mistakes you’ve made or regrets you have, remember this idea and say (maybe even out loud) “This moment is a new beginning, and I can choose to make something good out of it.” Who knows, maybe you’ll even remember that moment ten years down the line!