January 2, 2009 @ 6:29 pm | Filed under: The Solid Rock,Uniquely Me
I’m not making any resolutions this year.
There are no long lists of goals I want to accomplish, no checklists to mark off. My quest to simplify seems to have worked, at least to some extent, and I think that maybe if I’ve learned anything this past year it has been to roll with the tide, accept and release. Work well with what you have, adjust when changes come, look for the good, let the negative bubble up and off of you like rain water on a really great auto paint job.
Eat well, start the day with quiet time with God, exercise, work hard, play hard, give it all back to God at the end of the day, sleep well.
As I look back over the beginning of 2008, I see me pushing through narrow spaces with too much stuff. Bags of expectation, both of myself and others, sparkly and big. Then there are the pouches, little pockets full of things that I thought made me look better to people, more acceptable somehow. Isn’t this the way it always is with us? We work so hard to achieve the things that don’t truly mark our way in this life, and spend far less time on the far-reaching, life-changing aspects of this journey. No more – I want change, and I want it in me.
The year was full of surprises and virtually all of them were delightful gifts from God. I can honestly say that not one thing on my goal list from this time last year was fulfilled, yet more things than I can count were granted to me that I did not even have the vision on my own to imagine, let alone go out and try to create. My faith was built in ways that changed me. I thought I was solid in Him before, now I do not even know where I start or end in Him, only that I am surrounded by Him so completely.
Somewhere along the way I’ve learned to drop a few of the bags I’d been lugging around, things that I thought were of the utmost importance and must be carried by me, and me alone. In reality they were little more than dead weight and were doing little more than weighing me down, slowing my progress, distracting my focus. I’m packing lighter these days – simplifying – and I’m finding things (and people) with an ease and with a grace that I’ve longed for for such a long, long time.
I’ve also discovered more things in this lighter bag of mine. Forgotten words, growing in spite of themselves, in spite of me. But mostly His word, and this growing need inside of me to be directed by It alone; photos with smiling faces, waiting faces, people I’ve yet to meet, people I will be driven to love this coming year; and there is also this long and winding ribbon that is unwinding before me – the future – and the sight of it is a constant reminder that I desire to leave a legacy that will gift not just my children, but also my grandchildren’s children.
In 2009, I want to carry this one backpack and in it have the essentials – my faith, my love, my relationships. I want to pack light enough to get the good stuff in one bag. Everything else can be purchased as needed as I journey down the road. It’s not about a resolution this year, or a list of goals or dreams or a bullet-point list of things to accomplish.
It’s about living life, and loving every minute of it. Not because each minute is fun or exciting or everything I want it to be.
It’s simply where He has me for this moment in time, and I don’t want to miss a second.
