Get Set...

It's coming, very soon now: the end of one year and beginning of another!

I know in my head that tomorrow is just another day, that things that are happening today will happen tomorrow and that stories that are currently being revealed in my life will continue on with the dawning of a new day.

I know it in my head. My heart kind of disagrees.

My heart is excited by the magical turning of a calendar page to a clean slate, to an empty book of pages, to the symbolic meaning behind January 1st. I am perhaps a romantic at heart but I love the idea of a wide open road that's as yet unknown but that is within reach. It just makes me giddy!

So, I'm poised on the brink of a new year. I'm thinking through resolutions, I'm searching for a 2010 verse and a song, I'm making preparations for the anticipated but undefined!

Lest anyone not know, I must tell you that this anticipation comes from the Lord. It's not something that has always come naturally to me but it's a place where I've seen God refine and grow and push me in. I look forward with hope and optimism not because I am so great or my circumstances are so great (although I honestly can't complain either) but because my God is so great! Whatever may come in the next 365 days is not a surprise to the sovereign God who loves me in ways I can't begin to comprehend. The more I realize this, the more I'm excited and not just with the passing of another year but with the passing of each and every day! With the realization that He is constantly, sovereignly at work in my life and in me I grow to rejoice in every new morning that He gives.

So the new year is wonderful in its newness and promise. But at the same time, every single day that I live and breathe on this earth is infused with the same joyful anticipation because the God who reigns in my todays will reign in my tomorrows and that's far and away the best thing to get excited about!

Until He comes, let us praise Him with our lives!

A most happy and blessed new year to all!

Get Ready...

It's New Year's Eve Eve and I'm tying up things with ribbons and bows in preparation for saying farewell to 2009. The blog has a new look (which I adore and am sad to realize can't stay for long since it's got a Christmas tree), donations are made, closet is emptied (!), bills are paid, and the little ticks of the clock are counting down the last days of the year.

I am excited! I am overwhelmingly, exuberantly, excited about the coming year. I have no idea what it holds, I don't know what I'll do or where I'll go or what stories I'll have told when I sit here next year on the second to last day of 2010.

However, for now I must stop and say that 2009 has been good for me. No, better than good. It's been a great year! Sure, there have been struggles and pains but overall, this year has definitely been tipped towards the good and I'm somewhat sad to see it go. Sad to say goodbye but thrilled to say hello!

Today, though, I'm pausing in gratitude for the days that have come and the joys and sorrows and memories made this year. God has been so very very good and always so very very faithful. All praise to Him for what has been and all glory to Him for what will come. He has been the ribbon of joy that's colored all of my days this past year and I long only for Him to be reflected in every moment that is to come.

What has been has been very good. What will come will be very good. My God is always very good. That's real joy!

Christmas 2009

He comes down;
down from the heights of absolute being
into time and space,
down into humanity;
down further still, ...
to the very roots and seabed
of the Nature He has created.
But He goes down to come up again
and bring the whole ruined world
up with Him.
~C.S. Lewis

But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord."
~Luke 2:10-11

Wherever you are today, whatever your circumstance, whatever burden you might carry. Let me be the first to remind you that this is a day to rejoice for the God who loves you stepped into a world wrought with sin and held captive by evil to redeem and rescue and restore you so that you might live in peace both in this world and in the world to come. My prayer is that you would know Him and that His love would permeate your life in such a way that you may never be the same.

A most very merry and joyful Christmas to you.
For the Lord has come and we are forever changed!

Mercy Remains

A thousand times I fail
Still your mercy remains
And should I stumble again
Still I'm caught in your grace

Thank you Hillsong for yet again using this song to speak truth into my life.

Right now I'm in a season of a lot of failings and stumblings and just trying to keep my head above water when the combined stress of work and school and life are threatening to take me under. If there's one thing I hate about my job it's the stress that it brings to the Christmas season. It makes me so much less of the person I want to be and truthfully, right now, I just miss my time with Jesus so badly that I could just cry. I know that this season will pass and my schedule will relax and my classes will end and my program will be delivered. Yet in the middle of it, I'm just so very sad that I don't have the time to just sit and be still and reflect and engage and celebrate. Instead it's rushing and organizing and long hours at a computer.

In these days, I feel like I'm just stumbling...constantly.

I needed to hear that mercy and grace still hold me close. Even when I am feeling frustratingly overwhelmed. God is still good. Someday, I pray my life won't look like this in December. For now though, I'm just going to rest for just one moment (because it's all I have) to remember that God still catches me when I fall and carries me when I can't go another step. He's truly the best.

And now back to work...

Reminder

First song of the morning: "From The Inside Out"

First lyric that I really heard:

Your will above all else
My purpose remains
The art of losing myself
In bringing you praise

This life can't ever be about me. If I allow it to become so, I fail in realizing the purposes of my days. I may not understand all things (ok, I don't understand all things...how ridiculous would that be) but I do know that my life has to be completely wrapped up in the purposes of my Lord in order for it to work at all.

Good reminder for me. One I don't think is coincidental today.

Oh, and a most happy December to all! Thoughts on the coming of our savior, prayer, and much more coming up soon.