Thursday, January 1, 2015

Dance with me, 2015

Brand new year...no mistakes in it.

I can feel the pull to make resolutions that will fail in short order.  For instance, "I will lose weight," "I won't eat junk," or, y'know "I will keep a blog." ;)  I can feel these thoughts compete with the easy complacency that developed over 2014 and I realize that setting myself up to fail isn't in the cards today.

Peace...I can feel it now...peace that borders on boredom.  Peace that allows me to rest and sleep.  It's lovely after all the years of wishes so hard and impossible to bring about that every choice seemed like a diamond dug deep into solid stone.  Liquid peace is easier...easier on my heart...my chaotic mind...way WAY easier on my kids.

The reality is that I needed the space that 2014 provided.  That place of no judgement and no major responsibility so that I could see things that *I* might choose instead of picking from a list of other's choices that had been forced upon me.  I needed the quiet to allow my racing thoughts to calm so that I could see ANY choices at all.  2014 may not have been a barn burner for me...but it was a healer...and I walk away much better for it.

2015 is just another year.  Really.  It's calendar is already full of joys and sorrows, births and deaths, victories and defeats.  They are already written.  I mean seriously, look at your calendar, I've already got a car repair in 2015.  Those are all there.  And then there are those people who we've never met who will make an appearance in 2015 and never again leave us...and there are those people we've known all our lives who will say goodbye for the very last time.

It's just another year.

And yet, it's also another glorious chance to be me within it's convolutions.  Another chance to try to make my life all the things I've ever wanted it to be.  Another chance to follow paths and gifts that were set before me before I was born and discover who God is making me to be.

That is the joy, the zing, if you will, of any brand new year.  It's the smell of the new pages upon which to author you own life.  The crinkle as the journal opens...the smooth glide of the pen that we like to pretend is mostly controlled by our own hand.

It's pretense, that control we think we have.  One only needs to watch the news or leave three kids and a dog alone in a room for an hour with no supervision to realize that control is a brittle thing.  Still, for a moment in all of our beginnings, we like to imagine that we have it.

So let's dance, 2015, you and me.  I'll take my pen in my hand and shape you as best I can.  Praying the Lord will guide our steps, clumsy though they may be.

See ya around...