One more “New Year” post and then we are moving on <3

Post holiday greetings to each of you! 

At work we are doing inventory and I have to say as much as I love the holidays and especially white lights everywhere, there is something therapeutic about fresh starts. 

I know some people charge into January all full of goals and purpose but I tend to enjoy a week or two of looking back and evaluating. 

By flipping through our calendar, I can see various events that marked our year.

There are the big events like vacations and visits with our family and friends, but there are all the little things that made up the moments of 2019. 

Ball games and watching the Fab Four dots many of the pages as do visits to John and Sarah’s homes. These all involve travel and even as I reflect on the time spent with the people, I can log the miles of driving and flying as time spent listening to podcasts, music or just turning off the noise and muddling through the excess information that is constantly accumulating in my head. 

We are blessed to live in a day and age where our computers and phones catalog various photos that captured the stuff of life for us. I love to look back at the photos I took and marvel at how we laughed and the beauty that God put for me to see along the way as I passed through ordinary days.

One thing I started doing a number of years ago was to record books I finished reading on the back pages of our calendar. It is always interesting to look back over that list and it definitely inspires me to challenge myself to more disciplined reading of quality material. I have stacks of books yet to read and when I see the list for 2019, I feel good about what I was able to absorb and yet want to enter 2020 with a plan for more intentional times of reading. 

I also left some baggage I had been toting around for a while back along the way of this past year. And I am traveling lighter.

It was hard to let go of some of it, but by taking it before God and telling Him how hard it was for me I found He was so gentle and kind. He seemed to sit with me and hold me until I could let go.

He helped me to see that the good parts will not be taken and the ugly is washed away by His grace and mercy.

He understands how hard it is for me and He doesn’t judge that part of my makeup and He is a safe place to work through those things that are common to all of us and yet we feel we are alone in. 

How do you process the passing of the year and the transition to the new? 

Can I invite you to at least scroll through your photos that were important enough to capture with a click of your phone or simply turn back through the pages of your calendar and remember the year that was? 

Take a breath and lift it all to the One who knows your yesterdays, today and tomorrows. 

He is a good, good Father and you, my friend, are precious to Him.

Happy New Year! 

And let’s keep this journey going … onward <3