Themes

I have recently been doing some thinking about the new year and my new year's resolutions. I think I might take a page out of Shauna Niequist's book and thinking about a theme for 2016. So lately I have been taking some time to think, ponder and pray about what it is that I need to make the theme of my year--and it is starting to feel that it may be more than one theme.Honesty. I want this year to be marked by honesty. Raw, blunt and at times brutal honesty. I want to be honest with myself, my friends and God. I don't want to hide behind partial truths, lies or the perfect image. I want to be real, to be vulnerable and honest. Life is hard--it is beautiful and messy but it is hard. I don't want to be the type of person that hides behind the perfect image, showcasing a perfect life worthy of likes; I want to be the type of person you can sit down, have a cup of tea with and have a real and meaningful conversation. I want to be real, authentic and honest in a world that is so fake, artificial and dishonest. So one of my themes for this year is honesty. I think it is time that a little bit of honesty is added back into this world, starting with myself.Peace. Coming from one of my most anxious and fearful seasons I am in desperate need of peace. And not the type of peace that comes from suppressing the fear and anxiety by distracting myself--no the type of peace that comes from God. The peace that will hit me deep within my soul. I think that seeking out peace will take me directly into the depths of what I need to face. The type of peace that I am looking for requires me to trust God, something that I have really been struggling with lately. It will require me to face my fears and live in a stressful situation but seeking out God's peace will require me to look towards God and the Godly things not at the worldly stress that I am use to dwelling on. I cannot deal with another year of stress and anxiety--I think it is time that I start taking the proper steps to dealing, healthily, with my stress and anxiety. It is time to seek out peace.Grace. If you read my last post, Dirty Laundry, then you know that I have been struggling with grace and trusting that nothing that I do will make God love me more or love me less. That despite the fact that I am a sinner and I mess up, that God is not keeping score (as Shauna Niequist described so well). It is time that I stop waiting for the other shoe to fall (another one of Ms. Niequist's wonderful wordings) and it is time that I start to believe in second, third, fourth, fifth etc. chances. I am ready to stop expecting the worse, it is about time that I start hoping more and expecting the best. With that being said, it leads into my next theme.Hope. It is time that I live my life with a little more hope. Like I said above, it is time that I stop expecting the worse and start believing that the best can happen. I need to have a little hope. If you google a definition of hope the second definition that comes up is, "a feeling of trust."Trust. The big thing that I need to work on this coming year is trusting God. Trust is something that I have had a really difficult time with, and I have learned that it is really hard to trust God with all I have--but if I do trust God and do what he asks and calls me to, it is always always worth it. So this year I want to work on trusting God with my whole heart and stepping out in faith into what he is calling me to do and who he is calling me to be.I know, I know that is a lot of themes. But I feel like all of these themes connect together. I can't have one without the others, they all dig into the things that I really want and need to work on. They are not necessarily resolutions (I do have a little list of those as well) but these are themes that I want to implement in my life, not just 2016 but all the years that follow.So as you enter into this new year, maybe think of the themes you want to implement in your life. Be gentle with yourself this year, think about the things you may want to work on. But be gentle, don't hold yourself to a standard of perfection--it is okay if you don't lose those 25 pounds or reach all the impossible goals you most likely set for yourself. It is okay to need a little grace, to need a little faith, to need a little hope and a whole lot of trust.May the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Peace, Love, Joy and Blessings--Margaret Fleming