Happy New Year!

I'm always conflicted on New Year's day. Actually, I'm conflicted about 20 minutes after the Christmas gifts are all opened.  

Christmas is my time of the year.  I love it!  I'm not a summer person. I don't like heat. I don't like to sweat. I'm an 'indoor girl'.  I learned the hard way, from a very young age, that my fair skin and the sun do not make good friends. I also get migraines from the heat. I get heat exhaustion faster than anyone I've ever known. I don't know how to swim.  Shall I go on?

These are the reasons that as soon as the calendar is turned to the month of September, I start to get excited. Even if it is still warm out, I know the temps are going to cool soon. Leaves start turn and fall.  Football is on its way (Go Niners!) Nice chilly, rainy days, when I get to hunker down in my comfy clothes, indoors.  The holidays are on their way. My sons birthdays are coming. It's a good time of year.

And then BLACK FRIDAY!  I get together with my bff and we hit the stores. I get positively giddy. Christmas music, sparkly decorations, picking out the perfect gift, decorating cookies. I love every moment of planning and scheming and cooking and baking and stressing out that it won't be perfect..

But after all that fun and excitement, it's over in, like, two hours.  And it's a whole year before I get to do it again!  And I have to go through another summer to get to it!  

And then there's the uncertainty of a new year. Will it be the year when everything works out and all my dreams come true? Or will it be a struggle to get out of bed every day?  It seems to stretch out before me like a tunnel to nowhere. 

But then . . . I look back on the year that just ended. And I am humbled at how God saw me through the days of struggle. How he made dreams come true, kept my family safe, and provided for our every need - plus plenty of wants.  I think about how, every year I say "It's Christmas time already? It seems like it just happened!"  and I know, I will feel that way again. The same magical, giddy, feelings will return.

And after all this contemplation, I can sit back, enjoy the fact that it's still winter, look forward to mine and my husband's 26th anniversary this month, what I will do for my family and friends for Valentine's day, what I will put in their Easter Baskets. . .and before I know it, I will find myself at an outdoor concert on a warm August evening, enjoying good friends. . .and in the blink of an eye it will be Christmas again.

I'm ready, Lord! 
Let's begin Adventure 2015!