Greetings!  I have some disturbing news to share with you today. It seems that I no longer exist…at least, according to the Social Security Administration.

I learned about this situation a couple of weeks ago while meeting with someone about my Medicare. Yes, it’s that time…I’m turning 65 this Sunday.  If you’ve been through this process you know that one of the first things you should do is to go on line and create an SS account.  This also is necessary to begin the process of receiving your social security income, which is another thing that I’m now considering (seriously, where did all the time go?)

Anyway, after numerous tries and rejections on line, we got in touch with a live SS man on the phone here in Winston-Salem.  He said that was really a separate issue and that I would need to schedule a phone appointment, which couldn’t be done until April.  It seems that if someone wrote down my SS number wrong (even one digit!) that it would kick it back out and was saying, in essence, that I don’t exist.

These events really bothered me at first. Then the Holy Spirit stepped in and reminded me that the Old Dennis Breeden is, in fact, dead and has been replaced by the New Dennis Breeden:

  ²² You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; ²³ to be made new in the attitude of your minds; ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 4: 22-24

Recently, while talking to a dear friend and questioning my new self (the enemy loves to try and take us there doesn’t he?), I was reminded of this truth.  I was further encouraged to listen, every day for the next month, to the words of the new song by Josh Baldwin, “Made for More,” that we’re playing on WBFJ.  Perhaps you need to give it a listen as well. Here’s how it begins:

 I know who I am ‘cause I know who You are
The cross of salvation was only the start
Now I am chosen, free and forgiven
I have a future and it’s worth the living.

Grace and Peace,

Dennis