As the page turns...

A new year's coming. I must be getting old. I've barely gotten used to 2012! It's gonna be a big year ahead. Some pretty major changes, which I'll probably be sharing a bit about soon. (No, not getting married or anything.) :P

It was a good Christmas. I think some of the tragedies - Newtown and other things closer to home - actually helped get the focus on spiritual things rather than on the fluffy stuff. To think about others rather than ourselves.

Sometimes the greatest gifts are the smallest things. The things we already have, but perhaps need to rediscover. The cozy, quiet room downstairs. The spontaneous gifts from small friends. The thrift store finds.

There's this wanting to hold onto time that's so quickly slipping away. I dream sometimes of driving, unable to stop. There's a terror in it - a realization that I'm no longer in control. Waking reality is much the same. No matter how hard I press the brakes, I cannot change the speed of life, but only the speed I live.

I realize life's shortness when I look ahead to eternity. I realize its importance when I look and see those traveling with me.

I want to be "all there." I want to show people that they matter. I want to be willing to slow down, to make conversation deeper than the "how are you" and "good, how bout you?" that repeats without meaning week after week. I want to do hard things. I want to stop wishing other people would change, and simply live how Christ has called me to live.

I want to glory in the small things, in the joy and illumination of thinking God's thoughts after Him, in making things with my hands, in enjoying beauty and creativity.

I'm thankful for the gospel of grace. Without it, I would be doomed to fail in any resolution I could make. I'll still fail, and fail often, but thanks be to God, I am made perfect in Him! Looking to Him is the reason for hope; He is the one I follow even when I realize I can never follow perfectly. Anything good achieved through me is His gift, His work.

Thanks be to God.

first post of 2012

Somehow as the years go by, the numbers associated with them mean a little less. Time flies faster all the time, but I want to live fully in every moment, though I sometimes feel that I am drifting through my days.

It was a beautiful Christmas... though the child in me had hoped for snow. Isn't it exasperating when your grandparents are praying against snow while you're praying for it? ;) It was so good to spend time with family, to indulge in chocolatey goodness with a little less restraint than normal - but most of all to meditate on the magnitude of what Christ's coming means. I'm still getting back into keeping track of what day of the week it is after a relaxed Christmas break... but things are slowly starting back up.

I'm looking forward to a year of big changes, many which are not entirely known to me yet, but here are a few goals I have for the year ahead....

The first three biggest, most obvious ones...

- Finding a job
- Finishing my current courses
- Going to university (1st time going to a brick and mortar school!)
all if God wills...

And some others that range from vital to trivial, but I nonetheless aim to do...

- complete several sewing projects
- start a prayer journal
- declutter
- paint my room
- spend more time doing art
- exercise daily
- be more intentional about studying my Bible
- finish my current book list
- cook at least one meal a week
- look for more ways to minister to my family and my church family
- evaluate my attitudes and actions through Gal 5:22-23

 

The Light still shines over the place where the Lord resides. May we glow brightly amidst the darkness of this world! He is our hope, the one who leads our steps, ever faithful. To Him be the glory!