New Year's resolutions and me have a bad relationship. Annually, 11:50 pm rolls in and I go through the same pep talk in my mind, conversing to my God...When the clock strikes midnight I inhale deeply, usually kiss the hubby and/or kids, take a breath and think to myself how long can I go without messing up? A few seconds, a minute, an hour? Fresh starts like fresh fallen crisp white puffy snowflakes are beckoning...And I have great intentions of doing life better. I gaze into my loved ones' eyes and make silent vows to be better to do better. How my heart yearns to be proactive instead of reactive. There are many changes, some small...some huge...Year after year, they don't waver much and years have turned into decades and I continue to struggle...
So this year, 2014 barely in existence, I have done the drill with myself...we toast, embrace and pack up the kids and head home from company, good company, and my heart is full...how rapidly a moment can turn foul. She wakes up and throws a fit begging us to turn around and stay the night. She slept over last year and wanted to again...The small space can't contain her raging lungs and my fresh start somersaults completely around into a deep pit of lost patience. "Happy Freaking New Year," slips up from my sin-filled heart and right off of this untamed tongue out into my precious one's ears and into their little hearts. And I rage it out more than once...So much for my few moments of perfection...
So very often I try to do the right thing. I vow, promise, and no sooner do I find myself sunk down in a deep hole of regret and mistake. Trying so hard to be "good enough" or "better than" and most of the time I end up flat on my face...seeking forgiveness from the offended, from my God. And in those moments I am humbled beyond words. And I hear what I believe to be the small, still voice of Him, my savior, quietly pleading with me to extend the same grace He gives to all, to myself.
'But He gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."'
James 4:6
So this year I'm not making any resolutions that will get broken and lost. I'm going to stop trying so hard to be better and quit aiming for PERFECTION. Instead I will cling to the hope I have in my Redeemer...I will be "confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in me [you] will PERFECT it until the day of Christ Jesus." (Phil 1:6)
I will try very hard to let go and let God...as the saying goes...
