My Hope for 2015

I have to be honest and say that I'm not ringing in the new year with thoughts that this is going to be the best year yet.  Maybe because the many hard things of 2014 have made me cynical or maybe because turning 35 has made me more of a "realist."

I just know that 2015 will bring hard things and I will continue to struggle with the same things I did last year.  Anxiety and depression will continue to lurk around my heart every day.  I will lose ones I love because God will call them home or they will simply move away.  I will yell at my kids when I don't want to and argue with my husband over stupid things.  I will let my friends down when they need me most and I will complain even though my life is beautiful.

I will bring my sinful, selfish heart with me into this year, just like last year and all the years before.  No matter how many resolutions I make or how hard I try, I will fail.  (Aren't you glad you're reading this!?)

BUT....

I do have hope.

It's not in my ability to pull up my boot straps and make this year great.  It's not in my determination to be different or to find that one thing that will finally fix it all and I will be fulfilled and happy and "complete."  And it's not in those around me who this year will finally treat me and love me the way I want them to.

It's in this:

"Remember my affliction and my wanderings,

the wormwood and the gall!

My soul continually remembers it

and is bowed down within me.

But this I call to mind,

and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul,

'therefore I will hope in him.'"

(Lamentations 3:19-24)

The Lord is source of all hope.  I will fail myself and those around me but He never will.  I can bring my broken sinful heart to Him and He will change me in ways I could never change myself.  And every day that I fail to keep my resolutions He will still love me, shower me with mercy and grace and I will be able start fresh with every dawn.  He is more than enough through the bad days, the good days, the hard things, the happy things, the sunny, warm days, and the cold, rainy days.  

I know this to be true because every year I fail to keep my resolutions and I struggle to be the person I want to be and despair overruns my heart.  BUT God.

"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world,...."

I've tried all the self-help books, all the diets, and every resolution, yet I still have not achieved the full life I long for. 

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loves us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with him and seated us with him the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a results of works, so that no one may boast." 

Some of my favorite words in all of scripture.  But God. Where we fail, He shows up with mercy and in Christ gives us forgiveness and life.  I can't achieve it by my works, He gives it to me, as a gift.  Endless mercy, newness every day, hope.

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:1-10)

And He writes my story.  I am His creation and He helps me to walk in the way He created me to walk in.  And when I stumble...I fall back on mercy and start over again, and again, and again.

So, welcome to 2015!  May it be a year full of fresh restarts.  May every day begin with hope not just the first one.