I begin this New Year hesitant and hopeful. I’m not yet prepared to charge or even briskly greet the possibilities of the next 365 days. I feel as if I’m peeking around the corner — looking at new vistas but also comprehending that my scenery will not change dramatically.
I view this calendar border crossing as an opportunity to reflect, evaluate and be still. My direction and goals may remain unchanged, but I always find areas in my life and in my heart that are off-tune, squeaky and pitchy. I’m working through personal failure, parenting frustrations and anxiety over how fast time passes. I want to make the most of…everything and yet I can view the passing minutes, hours and days with an “hour-glass” half empty perspective. Guilt. Mistakes. Second-guessing. I run through the gauntlet.
And yet, I find December 31st and January 1st immensely beautiful. I cross this threshold with thankfulness. I’ve been gifted another year. Another year to be a wife, mom, daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece and friend. Fifteen years ago on New Year’s Eve, I had surgery to remove malignant melanoma from my leg. Accelerated by pregnancy, the melanoma had taken root rapidly. I held my two-month-old son and wondered if I would be alive to see him turn one.
This event, this season of uncertainty changed my course and informed so many decisions I made in the years that followed. No guarantees were offered to me, no guarantees are offered to any of us, but I absolutely knew that I wanted to be present fully in the life I was given. This has not meant and does not mean perfectly present by any stretch of the imagination. But, in the deepest spaces of my heart, this is what drives me. God has given me my beautifully messy and extravagantly ordinary life. I want to make it count.
As far as how this translates to my New Year vista, I’m not quite sure. Today I sit with some trusted books, a pen and notebook and I muse. I’m peeking around the corner. I’m hesitant, but also feeling brave. I’ll step out into the sunshine or gray-spattered shadows and start walking.
I discovered this quote by Henry Van Dyke. His prose has emboldened, convicted and encouraged my heart. I’ll start my New Year soaking in the wisdom of his words and go from there:
Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children;
To remember the weaknesses and loneliness of people who are growing old;
To stop asking how much your friends love you, and to ask yourself if you love them enough;
To bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts;
To trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you;
To make a grave for your ugly thoughts and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open?
Are you willing to do these things for a day? Then you are ready to keep Christmas!
~Henry Van Dyke
Happy New Year to you all!
EXTRA THREADS {a few favorites that help me walk into the New Year}
- The Life-Giving Home: Creating A Place of Belonging and Becoming by Sally and Sarah Clarkson
- Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons by Christie Purifoy
- Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life by Tish Harrison Warren
- The Songs of Jesus: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms by Timothy and Kathy Keller
- Book Girl: A Journey through the Treasures and Transforming Power of a Reading Life by Sarah Clarkson
- The Next Right Thing Podcast with Emily P. Freeman