HAPPY NEW YEAR ! ! ! !

Happy New Year !!!!!!!!!!!

And your New Year's resolution is ........................?????????????

Years ago I had started to write down verses on notecards and carry them with me until I had the verse memorized. I came across a worn card one day during Advent, 'Joseph's Song', and refreshed myself mentally and spiritually with it on my daily walk:

"In the Lord I place my confidence and trust.
For it is only in his strength that I can overcome the fear of this awesome responsibility.
Generation after generation will struggle for the meaning of the Lamb of God.
But only those who dare to risk
will hold the promise in their arms."

So, the focal words for me during Advent were confidence, fear, responsibility, struggle and risk. All of my life experiences up until this point have given me confidence that there is a loving God. Yet this confidence has not overshadowed the fear I have of looking others in the eye and calmly stating, "Yes, I know Him, and this is what He wants me to do." I am well aware that, no matter how great the struggle becomes between my confidence and my fear, God is holding me responsible to walk with Him. The Struggle will be daily and the Risks will taunt me. But I realize that I will never find the peace that holding the Christ child promises until I rise every morning with prayer and fill my days with the Spirit.

My New Years resolution? Pretty simple actually. I would like to be me in 2010. With great respect to all those people and experiences that have helped form a secure cocoon around me for many years, I often wonder what wuld happen if I would finally crawl out into the world. To confidently deal with my fears, to maturely accept my responsibilities and struggles, and to defiantly risk the condemnation that the world may heap upon me if I truly followed the Spirit. That would truly bring about a New Year wouldn't it?