Grown Up New Year’s Resolutions
“Do not remember the former things,
Or ponder the things of the past.Listen carefully, I am about to do a new thing: Now it will spring forth;
Will you not be aware of it?
I will even put a road in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert.”
Isaiah 43:18-19 Amplified
About thirty-eight years ago, as the New Year was dawning, I remember sitting down with my pen and paper, feverishly sketching a list. Not just any list...THE list...a list that most of us make each New Year with the best of all intentions of seeing each thing through. While faulty memory keeps me from recalling each and every item on said list, I do remember it looking a little something like this:
- Losing this excess weight
- Meeting my financial obligations (which is a hoot now, considering I was unemployed at the time of this writing.
- Seeing all of my written works published.
- Meeting the “right” person and having a family (okay, I never actually put this on the list but it was implied.
- Finding a good (translation: a high paying, work-too-many-hours, no time for God, family, self to the point of imploding from hypertension and cardiac arrest) job and being successful.
And the list went on…
I was 18 and barely into my first year of college when I made that list. I had the best intentions when it was made. We all want to move forward in life, to gain promotion, to be successful, with the approval of those around us. None of us want to struggle. We don’t want the pain of being unfit, in debt, working a dead end job because that’s all that’s available due to an uncertain economy and job market. We also don’t want to be alone. We may say it with our words and to some degree show it with our actions but the truth of the matter is, we are not equipped to walk through this world by ourselves. I am no exception. Sadly, a little more than 20 years after writing this list, I found myself exactly where no one wants to be through a combination of the choices of others coupled with my own heartbreak and rebellion. As a result my perspective has changed along with what I have come to see as truly important. With that I offer my new list of resolutions for this New Year and new decade: some “Grown Up Resolutions” as it were.
- I desire character above reputation. Reputation is the way you present yourself to the world. Character is who you are when no one but yourself and God is present.
- I desire mercy, forgiveness, and compassion, keeping in mind I myself stand in the need of these things daily.
- I desire patience and humility in times when pride wishes to rear its ugly head.
- I desire joy, peace, stability, and maturity. I have wasted the better part of my life allowing my feelings to boss me around and determine the way my day was going to go, by not setting and maintaining healthy boundaries, and by letting circumstances lead the way and in doing so steal my peace and joy. I’ve wasted more than enough time being touchy, petty, mistrusting of people and outright miserable. I no longer have my life in front of me as I did when I was 18. And I no longer have the time for wasting anymore time.
- I desire a healthy, balanced relationship with myself. I am the one person in the world I can never get away from, I have wasted more time than I should have comparing myself to others for a myriad of reasons; not being satisfied with the gifts God gave me, wishing I looked like Sister So-And-So, wishing I could sing/dance like this person over here. I’ve wasted so many years trying to change my hair to match my favorite singer (think Amy Grant’s spiral perm), trying to change my body in unhealthy fashions (can anyone say “California Diet” along with “Slim Fast”?), trying to change my ways of speaking including not speaking at all because someone believes I talk too much, adopting the likes of others whether or not I may actually share these likes. I have finally come to the conclusion that I am who I am and, as such, I am making peace with my hair, my mouth, and my thighs!
- I desire to love people and to help people when and where that may be possible. Maybe through a smile, a look, a hug. Or maybe just a simple “I understand” when in all actuality I may not understand. In short, I guess all I really want to do is to just make a difference.
“Do not remember the former things,
Or ponder the things of the past. Listen carefully, I am about to do a new thing: Now it will spring forth;
Will you not be aware of it?
I will even put a road in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert.”
Isaiah 43:18-19
He is doing a NEW thing!!
Dear Father, help me to be aware!!
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