The end of one year and the beginning of another is always a fun time of reflection. In today’s social media saturated age, post after post pops up paying tribute on the past year and saluting the future with high hopes. I have lots of friends who have chosen a “word of the year” each year. I salute them, but I don’t know how they choose just one. Clearly, I’m choosing like 732, so thanks for sticking it out through at least 75! ;)
This morning I rung in the New Year the best way I knew how, with a massage that was gifted to me by the one and only, Haley Jo!!! I spent the morning in a heated bed, relaxing for over an hour. It was glorious!!! Our conversation slowly made it’s way to Jesus and the way that he has worked in each of our hearts over our lifetimes. Haley described certain moments where the Holy Spirit revealed himself as different tent-posts being hammered in the ground throughout her life. I loved her illustration and the visual it created in my head.
I came home and 2019 continued on much like 2018. I fed the baby. I fed myself. I fed some more kids. I cleaned up and then I started feeding everyone again. I suspect the next 364 days of 2019 will look fairly similar. Eventually I had a chance to jump in the shower which is where I do my best thinking-like most moms-(can I get an amen?!?) and my mind wandered through all the typical goal setting categories.
My post-partum mom thoughts went something like this…
**I could attempt to eat less chocolate, but that would be a lame life.
**Running another marathon this year seems next to impossible with the daunting training requirements and the ever present needs of a newborn, so I may as well not set any running goals…better luck next year.
**I don’t want to diet because I’m nursing, but really just because I love food.
**Attempting to get more sleep with my current middle of the night wake up calls seems less than realistic, so cheers to more coffee.
**Keep reading – finish the New Testament and start and finish the Old Testament again.
**Anything that requires undivided time can pretty much be thrown out the window. I should chalk this year up to being inefficient and unproductive. (Super optimistic, right???)
But then my mind wandered back to the tent-poles and the visions everyone hopes and dreams of when the horizon of a new year is upon them. There’s no doubt most of us enter a new year with at least some optimism, if not a whole lot (apparently I’m the exception, Ha!). I thought about the people I’ve prayed for this year and last year and the year before that and I thought about all the tent poles that I truly believe can be sunk deep in these lives. When I think about years slipping by, I think about being one year closer to eternity. One year closer to Jesus coming back. One more year of the Holy spirit speaking and working in my heart and in loved ones all around me. One more year full of tent poles being driven deep.
So my goal for 2019 is to keep on keepin’ on. And When, or if, I reach 2020 and look back on the past year, my goal is to be able to identify with so much certainty, the ways that He met me and showered me with his faithfulness. My goal is to sit with friends I’ve prayed for and listen to them identify all the tent-poles that have been driven in their story-all the ways the Holy Spirit has opened their eyes and shown them His faithfulness. The tent-poles that will forever be “A-ha” moments of how the Holy Spirit lives and breathes and constantly teaches us more about who He is.
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the Hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Romans 5:1-5
Backyard Sunset on January 1, 2019
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