It’s Sunday evening and I’m sitting in my living room, fire going, wrapped in a cozy blanket. Kids are reading, and skating, and playing loud instruments. Just another quiet evening at the Heneises.
We’ve had a wonderful Christmas break. Lots of family time. For the most part everyone has managed to enjoy or at least put up with each other’s company. Apart from a couple days visiting grandparents, we’ve just been home. It has been a nice rest, but I’m ready for us to start back to our normal schedule tomorrow.
It’s the beginning of the year and this is normally the time that we set goals, make plans, look forward with a hopeful list of all the things we want to accomplish. I couldn’t resist doing the same. I made a realistic exercise and diet plan to start on the first of the year. I followed the plan for day one, and then the next day came down with a really bad cold which wiped me out for the rest of the week. But, this is probably a good thing. I am realizing that I don’t want a “plan” or a “regimen” or anything like that. I want to head into this year making better choices every day. One step at a time. One day at a time. Not a set of rules, but rather a better mindset.
As I’ve been sick these last several days, I’ve found myself all of a sudden remembering things I don’t want to remember from years ago. Remembering times I was especially selfish or stupid or mean. Remembering times I made really embarrassing mistakes. And I’m sitting here, years later, minding my own business, and all of a sudden I’m in that moment in my memories and my face turns red and I feel deep shame and I wish the earth would just open up and swallow me. Not fun. I was thinking about these horrible memories when we headed to church this morning. And then during the worship service over and over again there was the message of Jesus’ forgiveness and how it changes us and makes us new. We are forgiven. The past is in the past and we are moving forward into this new year, washed clean, filled with the Holy Spirit, following our Jesus wherever he chooses to lead us.
Forgiveness seems like a pretty relevant subject when you’re starting a new year. We want this coming year to be wonderful, we want our relationships to be healthy and fulfulling. We want work for our hands that gives us purpose and challenges us. We want to walk into this next year making great choices that will make us healthier and stronger and wiser. But, it’s hard to move into something new without addressing the old. If we want great relationships this year, we may need to go back and apologize for things we’ve done this past year. If we want our work to be purposeful and challenging, we might need to look back at why it wasn’t purposeful and challenging before. If we want to make better choices moving forward, we might need to make an honest assessment of the choices we made in the past that were more harmful than helpful so we can actually see what changes need to be made. And in the midst of all that looking back, we need to not sink into despair. We can ask Jesus to forgive us for the things we have done wrong and then we can move forward, learning from our mistakes and sins, and stepping into the new year with a clean slate. Ready to try again.
So to all my fellow imperfect human beings, I wish you a Happy New Year. May you learn from the year we just finished, and may you seek and find the forgiveness that washes you clean and may this next year find you wiser and kinder and walking closer with Jesus.
Life With Esther 