My 2010 Word

If you know me, or if you've read my blog for awhile, you know that I don't make New Year's Resolutions. I don't have anything personal against them, I just am not very successful at keeping them very long so I don't bother making them! Instead, I started a tradition several years ago of having one word that I want to characterize my upcoming year; a word that I carry and aim for throughout the entire year, not just a few weeks or months.

For 2008, my word was significance. I honestly can't remember what my word was for 2009 - I think it had something to do with more openness. For 2010, I've given it a lot of thought and have decided on the word new. You may consider that a little bit strange, but let me explain.

For the most part, I have not shared much about the struggles that I have dealt with over the past year. In all truthfulness, it's been a hard year. Saying good-bye to friends and a life that I enjoyed, moving to a new country, learning a new language, new culture, and new rules, adjusting to a harsher, colder environment, and trying to finish my writing course all took a toll on me. Most of the time I felt like I was just trying to survive, and that's not how I'm supposed to or how I want to live. I thought if I could just make it to the end of the year that a new horizon would be waiting for me around the corner. That's what I've had my eye on, that is what I'm hoping God will bring me to in 2010.

So I'm praying that this new year will be a time for NEW:
- beginnings
- friendships
- opportunities
- growth
- purpose
- freedom (as in no more German or writing lessons!)
- outlook

These are just the things I can think of right now. Hopefully as the year progresses, God will expand my new in different and exciting ways! And as always, when He does, I will gladly share them with you.

As I long for 2009 to be over and anxiously await 2010, I cling to the part of 2 Corinthians 5:17 that reminds me, "...the old has gone, the new has come!"

Let the countdown begin....

Numbering our days

"Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." - Psalm 90:12

6,694.

That's the number of days Clint and I have been married. Thanks to a handy application on Clint's iPod, I can figure out the number of days I've been married, the number of days I've been alive, or the number of days my children have been graced with life when there have been times I've wanted to bring them to a quick end!

But thinking about all those numbers, the verse from the Psalms popped into my mind. "Teach us to number our days....". I'm sure the Psalmist was not talking in a literal sense, but rather figuratively. Why? I think there are several reasons:

1. Because we need to realize the brevity of life. The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 39, "Show me, O Lord, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath." Open your palm and breath out onto it. That is the length of our life in God's eyes. Wild to consider, isn't it? Yet we think we have all the time in the world to do the things we dream, want, and desire.
2. Because we need to learn to make the most of our brevity. When we realize the short span of our lives and purpose to make the most of it, then we gain the heart of wisdom the Psalmist is referring. Who wants to waste their life on foolish things? If we spend our lives piling up material possessions, trying to accomplish things that are not meant for us, or living selfishly, we have lived life in vain, foolishly. Paul exhorts us in Ephesians that that is not how we should spend our time. He says, "Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise (foolish) but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." (5:15-16).
3. Because we need to be people of purpose. Someone who is diagnosed with a terminal illness does not leave the doctor's office and return to work. They go home and begin living out the last of their days loving on their family, spending time with them, and enjoying and doing those things they never took the time to do before with what time they have left. Why do we wait for the end to start living? We need to spend each day we are given purposefully living out our priorities in life. How do we do this? Colossians 3:2 offers some help, "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things."

This is not meant to be a morbid post, but one that just makes us stop and think for a minute. Is there something you have always wanted to do, but have put it off thinking there will be time for it later? Maybe the time is now. None of us is promised a tomorrow, but we can promise ourselves to make the most of today.

Will you?