There is a saying from the Gospel of Thomas that has lived in my thoughts:
“The disciples said to Jesus, ‘Tell us about our end. How will it come?’
Jesus said, ‘Have you discovered the beginning so that you can look for the end? Because the end will be where the beginning is. Blessed is the one who will stand up in the beginning. They'll know the end, and won't taste death.’”
When I read those words, something stirred deep inside me — not as a scholar or theologian, but as a man who has walked a long road from confusion to faith. I see now that my story, like this saying, is a circle: the end of one life became the beginning of another.
The First Beginning: A Child of Faith
As a child, I was introduced to a world where Spirit ruled over matter. In the Christian Science church of my grandmother, I learned that “Eternal Mind always has met and always will meet every human need.” That belief shaped my earliest sense of God — as Mind, as Principle, as divine order.
It was my beginning, though at the time I did not know what it would one day mean. Youth is full of questions, and life has a way of carrying us from our beginnings into tangled places. I strayed, not out of rebellion, but out of longing — longing to experience, to feel, to understand the human side of the divine equation.
That search led me through joy and heartbreak, through marriages, love, loss, and eventually into the shadowed valley of addiction.
The Second Beginning: The End That Saved Me
There was a time when I thought my life had ended. Alcohol had become both friend and enemy — promising relief, but demanding everything in return. My faith, my family, and my sense of worth were slipping away. Yet, in that dark ending, I found a quiet invitation.
When I first walked into an AA meeting, I didn’t realize I was walking into a sacred space — a place where endings become beginnings. The Steps were simple, yet each one pointed me back to what I had forgotten: that God, however I understood Him, was not gone. He had been there since the beginning, waiting for me to remember.
Step by step, I learned what Thomas’s Jesus meant: “Blessed is the one who will stand up in the beginning.” Recovery was not about reinventing myself but about returning — about remembering the child who once believed that Mind and Spirit could heal all things.
The Third Beginning: Finding Christ’s Church
Years later, my journey led me to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In its teachings, I found not contradiction but completion — a revelation that tied the circle together.
Where Christian Science had taught me that divine Mind heals, and AA had shown me that surrender restores the soul, the restored gospel of Christ revealed that the beginning and the end meet in Him. He is Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last.
I came to understand that “the end will be where the beginning is” because Christ Himself stands in both places — the Author and the Finisher of our faith. My baptism was not merely a new chapter; it was a return to the covenant written in eternity, the same Spirit that whispered to me as a child.
A Reflection in the Mirror of Mary
When I read the Gospel of Mary, I hear another echo — a voice that calls us inward, reminding us that the path to salvation runs through inner recognition:
“Do not weep, nor grieve, nor be of doubtful mind; for His grace will be with you all and will protect you.”
Her message, like Thomas’s, affirms that divine truth is not distant but awakened within us. And when the heart awakens, we begin to see that our beginnings — no matter how far back or how hidden — were never lost.
The Eternal Beginning
Today I can say that my end and my beginning have met in Christ. The journey through addiction, through discovery, through doubt and faith, has brought me home — not to who I was, but to who I’ve always been in the eyes of God.
I believe this is what Thomas meant: when we rediscover our divine beginning, death loses its sting. We are reborn into life eternal, and we remember that we have always belonged to God.
Closing Thought
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.” — Revelation 22:13
“Eternal Mind always has met and always will meet every human need.” — Mary Baker Eddy
“When we discover the beginning, we need not fear the end.” — A grateful disciple in recovery.
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