Goodbye 2009

The beginning of a New Year is like the first page of a new journal--fresh, crisp, and clean-- just waiting for new thoughts, new memories, and new accomplishments to be added.

A New Year is like that first breath you take in the crisp cold air--it fills the lungs, rushing throughout your entire body and making you feel alive and invigorated.

Have you ever noticed if you are one who journals that you have half a dozen journals lined up on your shelves all half full but never finished? I've realized this about myself because the first page starts and I'm determined to make a difference, create a change, and prepare my mind and attitude to dwell on things that are positive, beneficial, and honoring to God but then March comes around and I've realized that I've fallen into my old habits. The year's first rainfall comes and I find myself stuck in the mud with no where else to relay my feelings then in my book that I had determined would not be filled with pain and difficulty. You find a new journal with a pretty cover, and fresh, crisp new pages and you decide to try again, and again, and again until you've killed enough trees to write a 5,000 page memoir.

My mom had a post-it note with a clever saying on it, "When you pray for rain, don't be surprised by a little mud." Loneliness, pain, suffering, heartache are all things we try to avoid at every cost; however, the mere avoidance of these things are often the very trigger for our despair because feelings, no matter whether they are positive or negative, are legitimate and are necessary in our growth, acceptance, and understanding of life. After a heavy rain, while the ground is moist, a robin finds it's best dinner; it is also true for us, after a heavy rain in our lives, while the heart is still raw, we will find our greatest growth and reflection.

New Years is an exciting time to look back, look ahead, and see how far we've come, but Christ's grace allows us a clean, crisp, new page each and every day. God is not confined to a 24 hrs day, or 365 days within a year, His purpose and His plan for each of us started before there was time and lasts for all eternity. It is up to you to fill the pages with what is real, what is genuine, and what He teaches you from sunrise to sunset.

Be finished with 2009 and find joy in the newness of 2010 and of each day God graces us with.
Happy New Year!