2017

"living hands open"

i loved 2016. It was full of lots of highs and a few lows. Lots of learning, lots of growing and lots of figuring things out. But it was also a year of learning and growing into the idea that i don't have to have everything figured out. What a beautiful and freeing concept.

i don't like to do new years resolutions. Mostly i find them a cliché and too easy to forget. Instead i try to choose a word or a sentence for the year. Sometimes it's a Bible verse and other times it's a sentence like the one above - "living hands open."

This was an idea that came to me through my pastor when he offered me a job a few months ago. It wasn't a job that i felt qualified for and it wasn't one that i had ever seen myself doing, but when he said those words it affirmed that this was what God had in mind for me for this moment.

i want 2017 to be a year that i live with hands open towards heaven and a heart that is willing to be lead by God. 2016 was a year that was full of unknowns (and i fully anticipate 2017 to be similar) but God faithfully met me in the unknown and made it clear where He wanted me.

So, hands open...? That means digging deep into prayer and opening my ears and heart to hear God's will. It sounds a little daunting, but i love that God is a God of details and He won't leave me hanging out there in the unknown alone.

In the words of Jon Foreman: "So why should i worry? Why do i freak out? God knows what i need. You know what i need."

Happy 2017! May it be the best year yet!

scary close

i am a firm disbeliever in the term new year's resolutions, but i do admit that there's something about the start of a new year that has me reflecting on what i want to change about myself. Instead of making resolutions i try to find inspiration for the coming year that will challenge me throughout the year, not just that one time. Sometimes it's a verse (Isaiah 6:8 anyone?), sometimes it's a word ("perspective" comes up often in my life) and other times it's a few lines in a book that i'm reading.

The following is an excerpt from Donald Miller's book Scary Close, an amazing book that i finished reading a few days into the new year on how vulnerability and openness can deeply affect relationships. As i read these words i realized that this is how i wanted to go into the new year and a few weeks in, the words still ring true (unlike some other previously failed 'new years resolutions').

I am willing to sound dumb.
I am willing to be wrong.
I am willing to be passionate about something that isn't perceived as cool.
I am willing to express a theory.
I am willing to admit I'm afraid.
I'm willing to contradict something I've said before.
I'm willing to have a knee-jerk reaction, even a wrong one.
I'm willing to apologize.
I'm perfectly willing to be perfectly human. 
-p. 148

i love that these words aren't specific but paint a broad picture, gently pointing me in a direction that i want to be going. After all, new years resolution's are supposed to help us become better versions of ourselves and to challenge us to make changes that need to be made. i guess maybe i do believe in them after all - but i'm okay calling them by another name if that makes it more successful sounding.