The Art of Beginning Again

Last updated on: September 4, 2026 at 9:07 pm by Kelley Rouland M.A.

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The Art of Beginning Again 2026-09-04T21:07:46-06:00 Kelley Rouland M.A.

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An artist’s desk reminds us that even an unfinished page holds the possibility of beginning again. (Image created with Leonardo AI.)

I have never trusted a first draft. I don’t mean that I think first drafts are worthless. They aren’t. They are where an idea first becomes something real. But they are also usually awkward, unfinished, and full of sentences that seemed brilliant when I wrote them but probably won’t make it to the end. My first sketches are much the same. I am working on a children’s book filled with little star characters. Sometimes I draw one and think, Yes, there she is. Other times I take a step back and realize that she looks less like a star and more like a Pokémon.

Then I have to erase her face and start over. I don’t particularly enjoy this part. I would love to sit down, draw the character correctly the first time, and move on with my life. Unfortunately, my pencil does not always cooperate with my plans. So I erase. I redraw. I move an eye or change the shape of a mouth. Sometimes the correction is so small that no one else would notice it, but suddenly the character looks alive. Writing works the same way. I remove a sentence, add another, and move a paragraph somewhere it apparently wanted to be all along. Slowly, the story begins to sound like itself. For most of my life, I thought revision belonged to artists and writers. Now I wonder if it might also be one of God’s gifts to us.

We Are Allowed to Change

Most of us carry some picture of how our lives are supposed to look. We think, “If only I had done this differently, or why in the world did I make that choice?” I see scribbles, smudges, and entire sections that did not turn out the way I planned. It can feel like failure. Judaism, however, does not tell us that we are stuck with the first version of ourselves. It gives us Teshuvah. Teshuvah is usually translated as “repentance,” which can make it sound harsh and punishing. The word actually means return. I love that. Teshuvah is not God standing over us with a list of everything we have done wrong. It is God leaving the door open. We can return to God and to what we know is right. We can return to the part of ourselves that became buried beneath fear, distraction, anger, or plain old exhaustion. We may have wandered farther than we meant to, but we can still find our way back.

Looking at What Isn’t Working

Revision requires a certain amount of honesty. Before I can improve one of my little star characters, I have to admit that she looks like a Pokémon. I can’t keep defending the drawing simply because I have already spent three hours on it. My impatience to finish the project has to take a back seat to improving the work. That same honesty is necessary in our lives. Where have I made mistakes? When have I ignored my intuition because fear was easier to believe? Where have I made myself small when God may have been asking me to grow? Those are not always comfortable questions, but they are not meant to crush us. They help us see what is no longer working and where we may need to choose differently. Shame can convince us that our mistakes have become part of who we are. Teshuvah reminds us that we are still capable of changing course. We do not have to remain stuck on the same page forever.

Most New Beginnings Are Quiet

I like to imagine that a new beginning will be obvious. The heavens will open. Angels will sing. A clear sign will appear, preferably one that does not require interpretation, patience, or several conversations in which I ask, “But what does it mean?” That would certainly make things easier. Most new beginnings are much quieter. They look like getting out of bed and trying again. They look like apologizing without immediately explaining why we did what we did. They look like returning to prayer after we have been distracted for so long that we don’t quite know what to say. Sometimes beginning again means opening the manuscript, picking up the paintbrush, filling out the form, or taking the walk we have been putting off. It may be nothing more dramatic than making one small choice that agrees with the life we say we want. I think we sometimes wait for God to hand us a beautiful, untouched page. Instead, God meets us in the middle of the page we already have. It may be messy. There may be words crossed out and pencil marks that never completely disappear. That doesn’t mean the work is ruined. It only means it isn’t finished yet.

Becoming and Returning

Pirkei Avot teaches that we are not required to finish the work, but neither are we free to walk away from it. I find that enormously comforting, especially as someone who regularly takes on projects much larger than she initially realized. I don’t have to transform my entire life today, and I don’t have to see every step between where I am and the life I have been praying toward. I just need to remain willing to take the next step when it appears. Changing just one line on a character’s face can make a dramatic improvement. In the same way, a choice that seems small may quietly send a life in a new direction. I don’t think becoming always means turning ourselves into someone else. Sometimes it means finding our way back to the person we were before fear and disappointment became so loud. I still believe God plants certain dreams in our hearts for a reason. We may lose sight of them for a while. We may become discouraged or take a very long detour. Sometimes we may even wonder whether we imagined the whole thing.

But the door remains open.

Making the Next Mark

Eventually, there comes a moment in every drawing when I have to stop staring at what went wrong and make another mark. Life has those moments too. We cannot go back and redraw yesterday. We cannot unsay every word or undo every choice. But we can decide what we will place on the page today. We can carry forward what taught us something. We can release what no longer belongs in the story. We can begin again from right where we are. The first draft was not a waste. It brought us here. The crossed-out pages were not empty. They showed us something we needed to see. And this ordinary, unfinished moment may be exactly where God is meeting us, quietly handing the story back.

So pick up the pen.

There is still more to write.

Shalom, my friends

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