almost 2015

What a terribly difficult year this has been.

I'd like to write about it and yet I'm still not sure if I even want to go there. Maybe I should stay away from painful reflections tonight, this last night of 2014 when I still have all kinds of unreasonable hopes that this coming year will be the one when I lose fifteen pounds and we magically pay off all our debt and I start rising early each morning, all by myself and happy, when I have an hour or two of prayer time and in-the-Word time before the kids get up. Oh, and I plan to keep in step with the Holy Spirit constantly. This will be the year. Right? One can hope.

But my hope is not in the year ahead or how much self-discipline I can muster or even what God might do through me in the year ahead. It's in Jesus. Because... What is our only hope in life and death? That we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ.

I wrote more, lots more, but I deleted it. I will just leave it at that. Christ in me, God with us. God who knows the plans He has for me, God who turns darkness into light, God who works in all things for the good of those who love Him. He is with me, He cannot forsake me, He is with me always. I will trust Him. I will trust that He will help my husband and children and everyone else I care about in all of the ways that I cannot. That He will work goodness and peace and most of all GRACE into the hard places. I will trust Him for this.