January

It’s January 8th.  How are those resolutions going?  I didn’t make any.  Well I didn’t make any like I normally make.  Sure, I would love to lose a few pounds, but it’s not gnawing at me like it has in the past.  I was thinking the other day how I used to be sort of envious of people who didn’t need to (or didn’t want to) resolve to lose weight in the new year.  You know, they just ate food in January the same way they did in December.  It was a novel idea.  I think for most of my adult life my resolutions always included eating better and losing weight.  Not this year.  While, yes, I am trying to watch it a bit more,  It just didn’t seem like the thing to do.  So, what resolution did I make?

You know how sometimes you get a “message”, or an inspiration and you don’t know exactly know what it’s for or what you’ll do with it, so you tuck it away until the time comes when it seems right?  Sometime last year I got one of those “messages”.  I was reading an article about Authenticity and the words came to me….”be who HE made you to be.”  I saved those words in the notes on my phone and just left it.  As the year rattled on and we found ourselves coming to another New Year, those words kept coming to mind.  Over and over I would hear them.  So I decided that would be my mantra for the year, or more importantly for the rest of my life.  BE WHO HE MADE ME TO BE.  So what is that?  That’s the best part!  I don’t know.  At 51 years old, you would think you know who you were made to be, but I’m not so sure.

I have always believed that God has a bigger dream for me than I could ever dream for myself.  I’ve always believed that he was in control.  But was I trying to much to control things myself?  If you know me, then you would say ABSOLUTELY!  I know, I know, I can be a major control freak and I’m not saying that will stop anytime too soon, but wouldn’t it be great if I let God just lead me to who I was made to be?    That sounds like the easiest resolution I have ever undertook!!!

I’ve talked before about how I felt a “call” to bring people together.  I think that is definitely part of who I am ( or should I say, who I was made to be), so I want to speak about another set of words that stuck out to me recently.  It’s 2020 and I don’t have to tell you that it’s an election year.  You will probably never hear me speak about my political leanings, because I feel like it’s my business.  This past Sunday in church the pastor spoke of New Beginnings and Fresh Starts, and one particular statement stuck with me.  “We are not called to divide.”  As a person who loves to bring people together, I could have jumped out of my chair!!!  So many times we think we’re helping our cause by sharing something we agree with on social media, but is that what we’re really doing?  Aren’t we really just trying to create a larger divide between “us” and “them”?  Whoever “us” and “them” is.  Aren’t we just tearing down entire groups of people?    Aren’t we really trying to push people away, when what we should be doing is showing love?  Shouldn’t we be trying to understand that other people won’t always agree with us and we should still love them anyway?  Why do we always want to stir the pot?

So, yes, part of who I was made to be is a person charged with bringing people together, so I will always do my part to spread good news, to ignore the negative and promote the positive and good that crosses my path everyday.  

That’s where January finds me.  Full of hope for the new year.  I hope this finds you well and looking forward to the year ahead.  If you’ve got some resolutions of your own to share, I’d love to hear them!

Happy New Year!
xo