lookin' closely...

(When Caleb gets the camera? Let's just say the photos get quite artsy...)

It's 2008! A number that if you had told me in grade school I would be alive to see I would have shook my head at you in disbelief. Math wasn't my strong suit and the 2000's felt like the kind of far away that included space-travel-rocket-shoes. Yet here we are. No rocket shoes in sight yet still, a pretty incredible life, wouldn't you agree? According to sparrowjourney polls (taken informally at last night's New Years Eve party) I discovered that no one else does resolutions. I understand all the wise reasons to skip it but I can't help myself. I do, every year. I guess I just love fresh starts! I love new beginnings and do-overs and chances for reflection and change. And because they are wonderful and necessary I never limit them to New Years. A crisp Tuesday in April can be my "Jan 1st" because "His mercies are new every morning". How great is our God?!!

Still, especially at this time of year, I try to look closely at my heart. To repent of selfishness and recommit it to eternal purposes.
To look again at our daily choices and ask what's working? To thank God for past direction and ask for His help in persevering in those good things.
Decide what's not the best and let the excess, unnecessary, and the superfluous (that clutters both our schedules and our closets) be stripped away. Make some room for breathing and space...adding margin around the edges.

It's my wildly overblown optimistic side showing up but I must proclaim it boldly...I believe 2008 is going to be wonderful. When I fill out our tidy new kitchen calendar-marking down the anniversaries and birthdays (my babies will be 9, 11 and 13 this summer?! what?!!) and I see all those fresh, empty white squares? I simply feel like a preschooler at Christmas, mesmerized by all the shiny packages. The days are hidden, unknown to me yet but there, right in front of me. Just waiting to be unwrapped and enjoyed. And I am just the kind of gift wrap tearing, shrieking with delight recipient you'd want to give a New Year to!

(and on some drizzly gray February morning? when we are out of french roast, the cat vomited on the carpet and I am sick to death of math drills with a 2nd grader? and I plainly refuse to get out of bed? Feel free to remind me of this exuberant post...)