Did you ever have a new chapter in your life?

 


Did you ever feel like your life had different chapters?  Of course you did!  I'm still a young guy but I've had quite a few.  Seeing the Cahnman's off really does start a new chapter for us.  As a matter of fact, I feel similar to how I felt right when we moved to Temecula.  

As I went to get the mail this morning, I noticed something interesting on our rosebushes.  These tiny red bumps are bursting out of the stems of these dead looking bushes.  It's the middle of the winter, with temperatures getting to a freezing point at night.  Nevertheless, it's at this very time that the flowers are dead, and the leaves have fallen off, that inner growth happens until it bursts out of the stems.  The lesson I learned from this bush is that the time of quiet and apparent lack of life is really when new growth begins.  It may take another couple months, but this rose bush will be growing back bigger and stronger than it ever was before.

Our first two years here, we were like blooming roses, going from one activity to another and Chabad was a happening place.  The past two years have been like a dormant winter, but not because we aren't dedicated to the community.  We've been doing inner growth and preparing ourselves for the next chapter, which we're on the verge of right now.

While we would have liked Rabbi Yaakov & Tiferes to stay longer, they needed to move on, and their departure really marks the beginning of this new chapter for us.  Natanya is now taking over the preschool, and she's looking forward to starting a women's class!  We have some new candidates to help in the preschool and other good things are in the works.

So, when you're personally in a chapter of your life that seems dormant, dead, or worse, don't despair.  There really are opportunities for inner growth to happen and these times are the preparation for a new chapter that is bigger and better than what you ever imagined.

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