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New Year

2011 Recollections
A year of blessing.  A year of challenge.  A year of love.  A year of change.  A year of decisions.  A year of trust.  A year of brokenness.  A year of redemption.  A year of education. 
What a year it has been!  We began this year with a prayer...a desire to do what the Lord wanted with the burden He had impressed on both of our hearts.  And with that prayer began the adventure that shaped the rest of our year.  The closing of a wonderful, cherished chapter of our lives and the opening of a new one.  The good-byes.  The transition.  The greeting.  Of an entirely new world.  New roles.  New surroundings.  New culture.  New lessons.  But same focus.  Same center.  Same unifying love.  Of Christ. 
End of the Year Realizations
I've been doing it again.  Trying.  Striving.  Working.  Soul work...instead of Soul Rest.  I heard a song on the way home yesterday that listed off a string of adjetives descriptive of God's children and our new lives in Him - words like redeemed, forgiven, empowered, righteous and loved.  And I realized that my focus had veered away from the center of these things.  I have been working hard to exercise my soul instead of finding rest for my soul.  The kind of rest that comes from from the WORK of Christ on your heart...from being the recipient of the work instead of the worker.  Of letting the work He does in Me change the world instead of vaguely trying to do that on my own.  When my day-in-and-day-out requires so much DOING, it is too easy for me to forget to BE at my very core.  And to not take a step on my own.  To walk in His confidence, His ability, His redemption, His forgiveness, His power, His righteousness, and most of all, His love.

2012 Resolutions
I resolve to make 2012 a year of:
  • Broken-Heartedness: May I heart never be hardened to the pain and hurt in the lives of those around me and may my heart be broken over the love they have not experienced.
  • Discontentment: May I not seek comfort in the world around me and always be ready for the adventure God has planned for each day.
  • Discipline: May my own selfishness not rob me of the opportunities to be used in the lives of others.
  • Dependence: May I grow uncomfortable with working independently of the Lord at all.  May the only reason be Christ.
  • Desire: May I long for times of communion with the Lord rather than self-indulgence.
  • Beauty: May I give you the room to make beautiful things out of us all.

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