A new year, a new dawn of mercies...
And also, I got a new laptop for Christmas! Which, of course, means that I am going to turn into an amazing writer and faithfully blog every one of the 52 weeks of 2018.
What? What's that you say? A new laptop won't make me magically turn into a super consistent blogger?
Probably not.
The reason that I will fail and won't faithfully blog every week is that I am a *procrastifectionist. I'm also a human being, which is more likely and more generally the reason I will fail.
But praise be to God, the One who knows His creation and our need for second chances and fresh starts and new mercies and all the newness that a new year brings...and gives them to us every year, in fact, every morning.
I woke up on New Year's morning in our room on the 18th floor of the beautiful downtown Minneapolis hotel in which we stayed for Winter Conference, and as my eyes opened, they gazed on a perfectly cloudless sky. Just the night before, I had wondered what in the world my first blog entry of the year would be, but this morning, I knew...just about five seconds after my eyes met blue.
I had been turned to the window when my eyes first opened, and in my vision I had about a 3' x 5' glimpse of the bluest sky you could ever want to see on a cold winter morning. (And when I say cold, I mean double-digits-negative cold. It was brutal.) A beautiful blue sky, with no clouds in sight, not even when I got up to increase my viewing area. Nothin' but blue.
And just like that, my mind and my heart began, in a millisecond, to believe the lie that says "This year is going to perfect. The pain of the last two years is finally behind you, and this year...smooth sailing. No clouds. Just like the sky on the first morning of the year."
It's a nice thought, but it's not reality. Granted, I would love to get to the end of 2018 and have avoided all things tragic; I would be crazy to not feel that way. But the truth is that we live in a broken world full of pain and sorrow and strife, and if I'm not personally experiencing it or at least personally aware of it, I'm not taking very good notice of what's happening around me.
So the trick isn't avoiding every sky that holds a cloud in it; the trick is figuring out how to cling to the One who holds the **bumbleshoot, who walks beside me in the rain.
It's so easy to jump to conclusions and to believe things about God, about ourselves, or about our circumstances that just aren't true. He didn't say there would be no clouds; in fact, we all know that if we look at our world from outer space, we will see clouds somewhere. Even if they're not visible to us right now, they're there; that's part of living inside our blue-tinted atmosphere. Or in all of the universe, I suppose.
But let's not forget that clouds bring the rain. The needed rain. The rain of growth and soon-to-come beauty.
It is folly to believe that no clouds will come in 2018; in fact, we've already experienced some as Wednesday night, I had to call 911 as Hoffbeast passed out twice. Thankfully I was there with him, and even more thankfully, his heart is fine. But spending all day Thursday in the ER trying to figure out why it had happened wasn't exactly what we were hoping to be doing that day. And then Beth was super sick for three days. That's hard on a mama's heart.
On the morning of January 2, the same view I had from the morning before revealed a beautiful blue sky but this time with white strands of cloud across it. And just as God had reminded me of the truth the morning before, he reminded me again: I don't know what storms will come; they may be big, and they may be small. They may be many, or they may be few. But I know the One who is called Faithful and True. And the way I will walk through the storms in the best way possible is by being like that tree that's planted by the water in the first chapter of Psalms, trusting in the One for whom it was made...He is good, He is kind, and He is trustworthy.
I can trust the Keeper of the Clouds, come what may in 2018.
*My friend, Christen, coined the term "procrastifectionist". At least, she's the first place I heard it. It's probably my very favorite made-up word there is, and it perfectly describes me (and Christen, too)!
**A "bumbleshoot" is an umbrella. Yep, I didn't know that before Rex's fall debut in CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG either. You learn a thing or two when you hang around that kid.
And also, I got a new laptop for Christmas! Which, of course, means that I am going to turn into an amazing writer and faithfully blog every one of the 52 weeks of 2018.
What? What's that you say? A new laptop won't make me magically turn into a super consistent blogger?
Probably not.
The reason that I will fail and won't faithfully blog every week is that I am a *procrastifectionist. I'm also a human being, which is more likely and more generally the reason I will fail.
But praise be to God, the One who knows His creation and our need for second chances and fresh starts and new mercies and all the newness that a new year brings...and gives them to us every year, in fact, every morning.
I woke up on New Year's morning in our room on the 18th floor of the beautiful downtown Minneapolis hotel in which we stayed for Winter Conference, and as my eyes opened, they gazed on a perfectly cloudless sky. Just the night before, I had wondered what in the world my first blog entry of the year would be, but this morning, I knew...just about five seconds after my eyes met blue.
I had been turned to the window when my eyes first opened, and in my vision I had about a 3' x 5' glimpse of the bluest sky you could ever want to see on a cold winter morning. (And when I say cold, I mean double-digits-negative cold. It was brutal.) A beautiful blue sky, with no clouds in sight, not even when I got up to increase my viewing area. Nothin' but blue.
And just like that, my mind and my heart began, in a millisecond, to believe the lie that says "This year is going to perfect. The pain of the last two years is finally behind you, and this year...smooth sailing. No clouds. Just like the sky on the first morning of the year."
It's a nice thought, but it's not reality. Granted, I would love to get to the end of 2018 and have avoided all things tragic; I would be crazy to not feel that way. But the truth is that we live in a broken world full of pain and sorrow and strife, and if I'm not personally experiencing it or at least personally aware of it, I'm not taking very good notice of what's happening around me.
So the trick isn't avoiding every sky that holds a cloud in it; the trick is figuring out how to cling to the One who holds the **bumbleshoot, who walks beside me in the rain.
It's so easy to jump to conclusions and to believe things about God, about ourselves, or about our circumstances that just aren't true. He didn't say there would be no clouds; in fact, we all know that if we look at our world from outer space, we will see clouds somewhere. Even if they're not visible to us right now, they're there; that's part of living inside our blue-tinted atmosphere. Or in all of the universe, I suppose.
But let's not forget that clouds bring the rain. The needed rain. The rain of growth and soon-to-come beauty.
It is folly to believe that no clouds will come in 2018; in fact, we've already experienced some as Wednesday night, I had to call 911 as Hoffbeast passed out twice. Thankfully I was there with him, and even more thankfully, his heart is fine. But spending all day Thursday in the ER trying to figure out why it had happened wasn't exactly what we were hoping to be doing that day. And then Beth was super sick for three days. That's hard on a mama's heart.
On the morning of January 2, the same view I had from the morning before revealed a beautiful blue sky but this time with white strands of cloud across it. And just as God had reminded me of the truth the morning before, he reminded me again: I don't know what storms will come; they may be big, and they may be small. They may be many, or they may be few. But I know the One who is called Faithful and True. And the way I will walk through the storms in the best way possible is by being like that tree that's planted by the water in the first chapter of Psalms, trusting in the One for whom it was made...He is good, He is kind, and He is trustworthy.
I can trust the Keeper of the Clouds, come what may in 2018.
*My friend, Christen, coined the term "procrastifectionist". At least, she's the first place I heard it. It's probably my very favorite made-up word there is, and it perfectly describes me (and Christen, too)!
**A "bumbleshoot" is an umbrella. Yep, I didn't know that before Rex's fall debut in CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG either. You learn a thing or two when you hang around that kid.
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