A Jesus Year

[(It's now officially Jan 2, but this post was started on the 1st. Honest. :)]

I am having one of those days (weeks). One of those days where you are fully aware of your brokenness. Fully aware of your stupidity. Your mistakes. Mess-ups. Your straight up JUNK. ever have one of those days?! And it doesn't help that I just saw the movie "Doubt" in the theater. Haha...virtually no correlation with the story line but I think there are some overarching themes that everyone could tap into in some way in their life. Anyways, that has nothing to do with the price of tea in China, but the movie was good so if you like good movies maybe you should go see it. :) Meryl Streep rocks. As usual. And Amy Adams was quite awesome as well I thought. Ah, sorry this is not a movie review blog.

Ok, back to my self-loathing (while I eat a brownie...always helpful in that department. Ha.) I don't know, maybe it's an attack of the enemy around this time of year when things are happy and we are to "be of good cheer". Maybe it's the attitude of everyone getting serious and pondering their goals for the new year, and which ones not to attempt again from years past that are sure to end promptly by the 12th day of the year or so...like trying to cut out CHOCOLATE or something. PUH-LEASE. Just eat the darker stuff. Taste awesome. Less Sugar. More Antioxidants. Don't make me go all former-Rocky-Mountain-Chocolate-Factory-shift-manager on you and whip out my excuses for my occasional tiny (HUGE) piece (BAG) of heaven. Stalling. Again.

Today I am 2 years old. ("No you're not you're 24 and in complete denial. You've been babysitting too much.") Ha. No, today is my spiritual birthday. :) (If you want to know more about this you can read my long winded commentary on it here ; or also on the first few posts i ever wrote "an internal battle", "breaking free or tightening the chains", and "and now I'm free")
What a great day for that to happen to land on, huh? January 1. Talk about a New Year's Resolution. I have decided that JESUS is my new year's resolution. I was reading a blog recently where the writer said "I want a Jesus year, don't you?" I remember answering her audibly, as if she sat in the same room with me sharing my cup of 1/2 vanilla nut, 1/2 Swiss almond chocolate coffee (yes, it is divine), but in a whisper saying, "yes, I do." To hear it I think would have sounded like I was pondering my response. Not like a questioned, doubted response, but like "how do i get one of those....a Jesus year." I don't mean He hasn't been around for the last 24 years of my life, the last 13 years since I got baptized, or the last 2 years since I feel like I first met Him face to face. But how do I find Him, no--let Him in to the mistake-prone, sin-driven, straight up ugly areas in me so that I can be changed.

Not changed like the first time you believe and begin to understand what it means to live with Christ as your Lord and Savior. But the step after that. Changed in such a way that I stop allowing my laundry list of wish-I-could-redo's to affect my present self which doesn't allow me to see God's best for me, and know how to perceive what that is, based on the truth of God's word--not what any 3rd-party source tries to convince me of or way it tries to hinder the passions of my heart that are the very thing that makes it tick. I hate feeling like some intangible force be it fear or doubt, worry or criticism, opinion or expectation is what speaks the loudest to the outcome of my decisions. [I don't mean ignoring those whispers of wisdom that I believe are meant to protect or warn us (be it your "still small voice" or your "conscience"); I think those little inklings are placed in us for a reason and should be acknowledged like that of a guiding hand of a mentor or otherwise noteworthy voice of reason in our lives.] But I fear that I have spent much of my time the last 2 years listening more to the song of the incapable, than learning how to write my own melody with the tools my Creator has given me.

So maybe this reassessment of self-perception that I began this post with, which previously would have birthed itself into indifference, irresponsibility, and driving myself to numbness of thought, will, and has, projected my heart's thoughts into the world, and so has lost it's power as in intangible force in the form of one or more of the above mentioned emotions. An ending to a season of question frustration, and uncertainty, and a promise of present and future beauty, grace, hope and security in something (someone) who at first glance appears intangible as well, but perhaps is the very definition of the opposite-quite tangible-the WORD MADE FLESH. An uncoiling, unraveling, and undoing of myself to find that I in fact am hand-crafted and hemmed in to God's master plan. (Thus, my new blog header :) )

I want a Jesus year. A year of asking HIM to be my provider in ALL areas, and then LETTING HIM. A year of asking to be humbled, and graciously receiving the opportunity when it happens. A year of chances--of letting God show me how powerful He can be through me, instead of estimating that factor in my head and reassessing my prayers based on what I think He might be able to handle. A year to ask the one who created me who I am, and then BELIEVE HIM when He tells me. A year of being pro-active about sharing my passions with other people, and telling them about the love that makes my heart beat with such purpose. (And for good measure, we'll throw in a year of more exercise and eating green. :) )

With my Jesus year I have also committed myself to memorizing scripture more intentionally. Partially a personal goal already in progress, and partially because of the accountability found here by a group of women who are also in the same life race, seeking to be wiser, and more in love with their Savior. So I wanted to leave you with the verse I chose for my first memorization task.

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert, and streams in the wasteland." [Isaiah 43:18-19]

God is doing a new thing. In each of us. Let's not miss it. The Creator of the universe who creates streams of water out of dry ground--that's who I want to know and be loved by. Let's have a Jesus kind of year. And let's have a blast doing it.
Love you to pieces.