Joy in the New Year's Morning

January 1, 2015

The sun shines bright on the chill New Year’s day. Ice-crystals sparkle on the frost-covered houses, roads and lawns. I am at home, wrapped in a new, soft blanket, coffee brewing and candles flickering their golden warmth near-by. I feel happy. The Seattle office where I’ve worked part-time for the last six months had a going away lunch for me yesterday. It was a surprise to me and I was touched by their thoughtfulness. The staff there have embraced me with their kindness, warmth and spirit of positive regard. I will miss them, but it was so nice to have such a nice good-bye closure. My life experience has been that so much of the time, there is no closure only a brokenness that somehow takes longer to heal.

New Year’s for me traditionally has been a time of reflection, acceptance and renewal of goals. This year, New Year’s Eve found me leaving Seattle late afternoon, enjoying the brilliant rays of sun reflecting off the peaks of Mt. Rainier. I grew up seeing the mountain every day of my childhood and seeing it there, majestic, and pure surrounds me with the warmth of nostalgia. Three hours of traffic gave me time to reflect and unwind. I grew hungry on the drive and knew I could stop at any restaurant and buy anything I wanted for dinner. Somehow, grateful for the wealth that is mine, I chose instead to buy a steak at Safeway, splurge on sour cream and enjoy a dinner relaxed at home. For the first time in many years I did not see the New Year in. Instead I retired to my room, opened the window for the refreshing, ice-tinged air and snuggled into layers of quilts sleeping peacefully into the New Year.

This morning, sleeping well past my usual waking hour, I greeted God and the year with a spirit of thankfulness. I wake hearing the creek, now ice-covered still pushed through the ice to make it’s way through the ravine, to the Clatskanie River and ultimately into the Columbia edging towards the sea. ”I’m still alive,” I tell myself and discard the nagging reminders of pains here and there as my aging body protests the call to rise. I can still walk, I can still see, I can see eat, and talk and think. I am slower, yes, but still so many blessings I enjoy that others, of many ages, covet in their lack.  “Well God,” I ask, “What do you want me to do with today? With my life?”

I don’t have an audible response but turn to my Bible, continuing my reading in Ephesians. My prayer continues to be that God will open the eyes of my understanding because so much of what I read seems to bounce off the surface of my soul instead of resonating in the depths of my being which I think it’s supposed to do. In spite of what seems to be my own natural resistance I persist, ‘little by little, line upon line, precept (or truth) upon precept’.

Wanting the comfort of scripture more easily understood by me I turn to Isaiah and read a well-loved passage:

          Isaiah 40:28-31

          “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, The Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary, His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

These words are ones that have sustained me when I’ve felt so tired and discouraged I just wondered how I could keep going. These words have encouraged my heart to keep going even when the obstacles of prejudice, ill-will and hatred made me want to run away, to seek refuge somewhere where I didn’t have to suffer, but could just peacefully exist without conflict. God has strengthened me and given me courage this last year, time and time again. I am so grateful.

And so today, stretching out before me, untouched by the hands of time invites me to another new beginning. I don’t know how many days I will have of this year, but the invitation is there to value and treasure the days and live each one with purpose; my own purpose and plans enfolded with hopefully God’s design for these later moments of my life.

So, I will write down my New Year’s resolutions; one tradition I will keep.

1.    

1. Commit my family unto God and stop worrying about them, (pray for them yes, worry about them no.) 

2.   Create opportunities to have family time with each member on a monthly basis.  (Be open to looking a new ways to spend time together. Shopping, lunches out, getting nails done, going to movies, plays, events, parks, beaches etc.)

3.     Be willing to change my career if another doorway opens. (with God’s leading).

4.     Keep working on my fitness goals

5.     Seriously work harder on being kind to everyone.

6.     Maintain my devotional time with God each morning.

7.     Write a daily blog.

Not that long of list really, just pared down from year’s past. More to the basics of what’s really, eternally important, and what my time might be used for the most good.

The last two years I have written about finding Joy in the Morning. This morning, this New Year’s Day I have have joy. And I have peace. It is a blessing and a comfort.

May each of you reading this find comfort in this moment, learning to trust that what God has said is true. That if we turn to Him, invite Him into our life that he will be the repairer of the broken places, the restorer of the ‘years the locust, (or sorrow) has eaten’.

Remember, God is the healer of the broken-hearted.