Forward

So much of this past year has been hard, uncertain, left unfinished. Dreams yet to be fulfilled, goals put off for yet another year, visions of peace marred by the incursions of sadness, anxiety, frustration. I found myself this past week, as I lay on the couch fighting a fever that lasted for days, wishing I could have just one more month to get everything in order before the New Year started. As if the turning of a digit cared one whit for my to-do list.

I wanted to feel closure, accomplishment, a happy resolution to 2013.

Then I read this post on Ann Voskamp's blog (go ahead, click the link and go read it, I'll wait right here).

"How in the world do you step hopeful into the next year when you tripped messy through the last year? How do you stand brave with all the smiling rest and ring in the new year when the old year still feels a bit like a millstone around the neck? What if everyone else is making New Year’s resolutions and you just want New You solutions?"

And so, I let it all go. All of it.
I breathe, long and slow and deep, and with the exhale,
all the things that I've been holding over my own head,
they fly free into the atmosphere.

I'm starting fresh today, with a clean slate, asking with an open heart,
"what do You, who holds the world, hold for me this year?"

"And there’s the utter release of being more grateful for what is than feeling guilty for what isn’t — The moving forward always happening in the relief that all the guilt is covered by His grace."

A Happy, Fresh, Clean-Slate New Year to you all!