It's here and I'm not ready...

2012 jumped in front of me with thumbs in its ears and tongue sticking out.  It spit raspberries and laughed, waggled its fingers and whooped.

Then it ran, taunting, as I tried to catch my breath and follow.  But I had to just rest against a tree and get my bearings.  I'm still not really ready.

I know the newness is here.  I have always been a resolution-maker and a word-chooser.  Being an optimist by nature, even though the date of January first really doesn't mean anything spiritually, I have always met the beginning of the calendar with butterflies in my gut, excitement pulsing through my veins, knowing that this year would be the year I got it all together.

Last year I decided I wanted to be free.

I chose the verb "free" but instead tried to live the adjective "free" and the noun "freedom".  Yet as 2011 came to a close I realized that the two sides of the coin called freedom baffled me with their oscillation:

• I am already free.  Was already free last January first, and didn't need to actively seek what I could already claim.
• On the flip side, I came face to face with the truth about my humanness, and learned more about how to accept my failings than about how to break decades-old chains.  In very real ways, I don't feel free.  There was a big learning curve on that one.

So I tried to figure out what word I would want to define my new year.  This is the year I will more fully embrace the fact that realness is more important than masks, and that grace is a much more powerful motivator than judgement.  In all of my searching and pondering the word that kept popping into my mind was respond.

Respond to my children, my husband, my own fears and doubts, my long-sleeping dreams.  Respond in real ways to the whispers of the Holy Spirit when it comes to serving and giving, breaking down walls and reaching out.  Respond in love, respond with grace, and respond always from the heart and not from the chain-laden prison of the "should".

I am hopeful that the search for freedom will continue and gain purpose through this responding, for it is the action of response that will lead to the opening of the heart, and as the heart swells, chains will inevitably break and fall away.


I would love to know your word, your goals, our resolutions for the new year.  Leave a link so I can visit and encourage...

Photo Credit