Jan
1
A New Year…
Filed Under Life
New Year’s always brings people to reflect on the previous year, or years and look ahead to the coming year. It’s easy to look back and see the accomplishments and the failures the last year brought and from that, make “resolutions”. I don’t necessarily make resolutions. One may argue, why wait til the 1st of every year to try to change the way you’re living? Why not change it June 24th? But there’s so much hype this time of year, it’s easy to get caught up in the hoopla of making changes and it’s a good boost and motivator. The only problem is the hoopla dwindles and so does your motivation. I wonder how many people actually keep their new year’s resolutions.
For me, I’ve looked back on this past year and on the surface, I could categorize it as a failure. This time last year I moved back home to MN to finish raising my support and get to Ohio as quickly as possible. Yet I am still here, still raising support. If I looked at the last year in only those terms, then yes, this past year was a failure. But instead of looking at what I did not accomplish, I need only to look at what I have been given to see that 2008 was indeed a great, successful and filling year. I got to spend a lot of time with my family. Living across the country makes that difficult to do and being here for the birth of my nephew was pretty sweet. Watching him grow, develop and turn into a little person has been amazing.
Then God has blessed me, not with a “church” but with a community of believers and a spiritual family. They have challenged me, helped me grow, and opened my eyes to more of who our God is. I cannot even put words to begin to express what these new friends have meant to me.
I think it’s easy to look at a past year and see what was not accomplished. It’s harder and more rewarding to instead, look at what God has given us and see how He has blessed us in the most, seemingly small, ways.
God Bless everyone in 2009!