Grace
And so here we are at 2014….*insert cliche here* it’s so hard to believe! 2013 went so fast! Etc, etc. Whew, there, got it out of my system. 🙂
E and I were sitting and talking last night, waiting for the ball to drop (sidenote: E, who grew up in New York, thinks it’s strange that the Times Square New Year celebration is delay-televised in each timezone as if it’s happening live – he didn’t realize this was done until he moved out here and I, naive midwestern girl that I am, asked him if they really repeated the whole thing every hour for the rest of the country). I thought maybe we’d have a discussion about our resolutions and goals for the new year as that’s a fitting topic for New Years Eve. Instead, we kind of marveled at our lack of resolutions and goals for the year. We have a fairly large event looming before us and it has really overshadowed everything else, holidays included.
In some ways, it’s actually been very freeing. I keep seeing various “challenges” popping up on different blogs I read….organizing your home, getting into a cleaning schedule, making the switch to real food, giving up sugar, etc. that will run for most or all of the month of January and every time I saw them load on Facebook or my feed reader, there was a little part of me that said, “I should do that! Sign me up!” Ignition of brief excitement for the possibility of bettering myself because this or that challenge was going to help me be the me I want to be! And then…reality drenched it, I came to my senses (knowing that there is absolutely no way I can commit to anything like that for at least six months), and kept scrolling down.
Whereas in the past I would probably hem and haw and wonder if maybe I should do those challenges….trying to convince myself that I should be able to fit that into my schedule and I can’t possibly be a better person unless I can say yes to challenges like that, I gave them one, possibly two more thoughts. Then I allowed a new concept to sink into my head, one that said that it’s okay that I can’t do those things. That no one is expecting me to sign up for a 30-day organizing challenge (and, in reality, no one probably cares if I do). That not signing up isn’t an indication that I’m a lazy person or not willing to put in the work that it takes be be the me I want to be.
That what I really need is not another challenge or resolution, but instead…..grace.
I could probably come up with an entire challenge of my own on grace as it’s a topic I’ve wrestled with quite a bit since I graduated from my very legalistic Christian high school. I’m so very bad at it, not only for those around me, but also for myself (as it usually goes), but I know it’s something I desperately need in my life.
So instead of coming up with a bunch of resolutions and lists and accepting challenges and giving myself goals that will never be met, my one “theme” for this year is grace. I honestly don’t really know what that means, but it’s what I want to focus on this year.
Grace. For those around me. For myself. In general.
Just grace.
