A New Year’s Catch-Up and Blessing

Happy New Year, dear one!

My daughter went back to school this week, and I had a hankering to sit down and write a blog post like it’s 2011 and just tell you what’s going on in my neck of the woods. So have a seat, dear one, and let’s chat.

How was your Christmas? Glory be, Christmas break was so good to my people and me. Unlike last Christmas, we were all healthy (praise hands!). For several days, I wore all my comfy clothes and primarily dined on Chex Mix and homemade fudge.

Related: I need to start my exercise routine again rather than just talk about starting my exercise routine again.

And while I’m the subject of exercising, I need to get back to regularly stretching my writing muscles as well. In light of that, I’d love to write in this space more often. I know blogging isn’t as popular as it used to be, but old-timey me misses the regular blogging days of yesteryear. I can’t do much about overall trends, but I can show up here more regular-like.

Hurray for going against the flow and being grownup enough to make the choice to do what I love rather than swept away with what’s expected.

Let me tell you something I did this Christmas that I’ve never done before: I wished for snow. If you know me at all, you know I never wish for snow–especially with two teen drivers in the house. But in solidarity with one of my kids who loves snow more than sleeping in, I wished it for any and all of December. I wished for it, too, because I wanted to fill up on every Christmas delight, including the fluffy-covered landscape kind. We got a little for Christmas, but we got a lot more for New Year’s. I’m continuing to be more intentional about welcoming winter for the good, growing-down season it is.

I may not be wishing winter away (yet), but there are a few other carry-over things from 2018 I do wish would go away. Maybe like me, you also have stuff you’d like to say goodbye to, but they linger through the new year. Maybe you’re carrying something that looks like questions unanswered, projected unfinished, or results unknown. I’m one who likes to put a cover of closure on something, and I want that closure yesterday, thankyouverymuch. But sometimes we just don’t get that. Sometimes we must continue to walk through things day by day, eyes on Christ over circumstances.

A while back, I read the Message translation of Psalms 126:5-6.

“And now, God, do it again–bring rains to our drought-stricken lives

So those who planted their crops in despair will shout hurrahs at the harvest,

So those who went off with heavy hearts will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.”

A drought doesn’t end because the calendar year does. But this we can count on: the drought, the heavy-hearted thud in our chest is not the end of things. Hope always gets the last word. Our problem, issue, quandary, questions, and difficult situations are not the final notes to a sad song. They’re the pause–sometimes a rather long pause–before the final notes of resolution.

I do believe God’s Word, but I struggle to not get plumb worn out in the waiting.

Our God can make a Red Sea Road in the most impossible, unlikely of places. While we wait for resolution in our own circumstances, He waits with us. He won’t leave us, and He will see us through to the other side in one way or another. Like me, you may be weary in the fight, but don’t let that weariness take you to the outside of hope looking in. As long as you keep moving one foot in front of the other, you’re still in the fight. And that means you’re winning.

If you’re walking through this New Year holding left over changes and circumstances from the last one, this is my spoken blessing for you: May your perspective not be determined by your perceived circumstances, but by God’s promised faithfulness. He is for you always.

Keep your feet moving and arms open, dear one.

Armloads of blessing are coming.