things that remain

How many “Best of 2011” lists have you already read?  I think I am going on at least five or six now, but I love them- can’t get enough of them actually!  Best books, best recipes, best weddings, best weight-loss stories, best vacation destinations, best movies… I am having a blast comparing the things I read, saw, and did with what others are saying are the best things you could have read, saw, and done in the last 365 days.  The verdict: I am woefully behind in the arts, incredibly non-creative with a dinner menu, and hardly a trailblazing critic when it comes to movies.  I think I can live with that, and as I am a big fan of resolutions, I’ll try much harder in 2012 to check off a few more of the New York Times bestsellers.

I think that we all love the feeling of a clean slate, and bringing in a new year gives everyone the chance to have one.  But it also marks a clear turn in the timeline of our lives, and those are the points that make it easy and worthwhile to stop and reflect on what we have and have not accomplished.  Since most of us put our lives on autopilot and just go, go, go on with the pursuit of a life that makes us feel good about who we are, the built in calendar changes are pretty great and pretty necessary.  I wish I spent time re-capping and re-vamping like I do at the New Year much more often, actually. 

As I look back at 2011 and dream about 2012, I am so, so grateful.  (Side note: can I recommend that everyone start a blog?  By looking back at a year’s worth of writing, I am reminded of wonderful moments, convicting seasons, lessons learned and what an amazing best friend I have in Kristin Stockfisch- who I get to write with.  It is both humbling and gratifying to see the highs and lows of your year as you have honestly written them.  So start chronicling your journey, it is so worth it.)  The sweetest moment of 2011 was, by far, communion at our wedding.  One of my best childhood friends, Kevin, prayed for us, and his beautiful wife, Trisha, sang “Oh the Blood of Jesus” while Alex and I took communion from my college pastor and mentor, Mike Sanfratello.  Behind me were four amazing and wonderful friends: Kristin, Emily, Aubree and Lauren; and watching us make this covenant were so many of our friends and family.  I wish I could relive the perfect peace of the moment, it was as right as anything in my life has ever been.  A glimpse of heaven in this world.

To celebrate a year past and dream about a year to come, Alex and I did something different this New Years eve, a tradition we hope lives on in our marriage and with our family every year of our lives: the prayer jar.  Each of us wrote down twelve prayers for 2012, and one at a time we shared the prayers with each other then put them safely in the jar.  These are the things we have given to Jesus, the things we are praying big for this year, and the things I have no doubt God will take care of in his perfect ways.  After praying together we ate fresh-out-of-the-oven brownies and had a two-person toast with sparkling cider.  So wonderfully and perfectly us. 

While we have all been given the gift of a new year, we all only have one lifetime to live fully the sum of all of these amazing years.  There will always be things to celebrate and moments worth remembering in fine detail.  But what I am most struck with today, in my somewhat rare state of intentional reflection, is that we were all created with the very same purpose for our lives.  Uniquely gifted, specially talented, placed in different circumstances, and blessed with wonderfully different passions… but one divine purpose: to live like Jesus did.  The standard has been set for us, and we have everything we need (which if we are really honest, we don't need very much) to love and honor the very person who paved the way for our hearts to be after God’s.  I want that to be the one resolution I actually keep this year.  And I will make more than my fair share of mistakes along the way: I will argue with my husband, I will judge other people, I will make poor stewardship decisions, I will trust in my own abilities much more than I ever should, I will fail to make time with Jesus a priority, and I will probably be less than fully honest at times, too.  But I know I can do the one thing God is asking me to, and that is trust him. 

Whatever your year looks like, I hope and pray that it is in the sweet spot of God’s will.  May this year be one of living by grace through faith, of finding joy in each day, of getting out of our comfort zones and meeting Jesus there, and fighting hard through the noise of this world to find moments of perfect peace.  With all the newness of this time of year, may we remember that only two things will always remain: God’s word and God’s people—invest your life in those things.