Resolution

A new year has begun, but our house is still hanging on to Christmas. In part, this is due to the fact that my husband was away for half of December, and I would like for him to be able to still enjoy the light of our Christmas tree(s). But if I'm honest, the house also remains decorated because part of me is timid about moving forward.

It feels like a strange thing for me sometimes, to say goodbye to an entire year of my life. Maybe it is personality, or maybe it is simply humanity... but at the turn of each new year, sometimes I find myself fighting against a sourceless melancholy. The Lord's peace and presence always ensure that I win the fight, so no concern there... but it helps sometimes to write it all out.

It's not a frightened feeling, for certain, because I feel excitement about a new year just as much as any other emotion. But timid is the only word that seems to summarize it all.  It's a vague feeling of being unprepared. Ready, anticipating, for something that I can't quite name. Or perhaps it's simply an attachment to the year just completed, and all that it held inside its 365 days. 365 days that at times seemed so much longer than that... and at others, so much shorter.

At any rate, emotions are present.

- - -

2013 was a year of being shaken and stirred. It was a year of coming awake, and of listening closely to Holy whispering. Tim and I were faced with several huge transitions - some amazing, some more difficult. We bought our first house, went through a large transition with Tim's job, faced some growing pains in our second year of marriage, began the slow work of building community, hurtled some obstacles with my health, and continued trying to love our families well and fully across the miles. It was a busy year... yet it was very quiet.

The moments of feeling 'settled' were more brief than I would have planned for myself... but about half-way through the year, I realized that the Lord had never intended 2013 to be a year of settling in. He had intended it to be a year of stirring embers, pushing limits, gigantic successes, and praying to Him in the dark. He knew what I needed, better than I did. He knew that I needed Himself. I needed to change my attitude, and look up. I needed to begin doing my not-so-favorite thing, and do it in a hurry... I needed to try and roll with it. The rewards of that decision were larger than I knew to expect.

2013 ended up being  a year of craving God, more desperately than what's felt in a battle cry. It was also a year of receiving Him in my life... a transfusion into my heart, and into my soul. Most of the transformations that occurred in my life, happened inside my own home. They happened inside closets while picking out what to wear, at kitchen tables while eating breakfast, sitting on couches while reading a book, or lying in bed at night wishing Tim were there beside me. The changes did hopefully impact the rest of of my life as well... my job, my friendships, finances, etc... but these stages were not where the bulk of transformation happened.

The transformation happened when I was alone. And I was alone a lot in 2013. There was nothing to do, at times, but speak the words that Samuel spoke to God in the Old Testament... "Speak Lord, Your  servant is listening." God knew right where to find Samuel that night in the temple, and He knew right where to find me in 2013. He knew exactly how to make the year of quiet mean something more than what I thought it did at the time. I am grateful to Him, for knowing me... and for knowing that the thing I needed most of all, was Him.

- - -

As I begin 2014, I have no new resolutions. Everything remains very much the same. There are no new exercise routines to try, no grand social-media fasts to begin, no new promises needing to be made or kept... the same key pieces are still in place. Life continues, and the only thing really new are His mercies, every morning. But although I still have no clear direction of what needs to be "different" this year, I do know the one thing that I desire to stay the same.

I want to know God, as real and as closely, as I grew to know Him in 2013.

I do not have any new resolutions, other than this... to be found faithful and to obey the last commands I heard from Him. To continue marching forward, with faith and expectancy for something I cannot see - eyes looking straight into His own, heart desiring more of His heart, and seeking to keep time with Him. To continue marching forward, loving others as He first loved me, serving in ways I think He would, speaking life instead of death, and dying to myself as many times as it takes, in order to be made new.

These are my resolutions... and I pray that they always will be.

Happiest of New Years, to all.

Lauren