The Dance- Becoming God's Best First

        I guess it’s true what they say about blinking- that if you do it too often you might miss something.  It seems that every year on December 31, we realize just how quickly time can pass as another year is born in the blink of an eye.  

This has been a good year.  A quick one, but a good one.  

For me, this past year has been a year of healing and of taking new chances.  Of learning more about myself.  Of retreating.  And then of re-opening myself to the world around me.  It has been about change and challenge in the best ways possible.  

As clocks everywhere are counting down the hours until midnight, and I’ve been revisiting the past year, I’ve suddenly been overwhelmed with a realization of newness.  I am someone new.

I suppose this didn’t happen in a day, but it’s the first time that I’m looking back at the big picture and realizing it.  God has stretched me and molded me to reflect Him better.  

I hope that I do.

In the past year, I’ve learned to let myself off the hook and treat myself better.  I’ve learned to forgive myself (which was a far more difficult task than I ever would have imagined).  I’ve learned that God is the only one who is allowed to define me.  

I’ve also learned simpler things.  Like how to ignore my cell phone.  

I’ve learned to step outside of my comfort zone.  Take new chances.  Explore opportunities just for the sake of exploring.  Quit things that you love to make room for new opportunities.  

I’ve learned that it’s ok to begin to dream again when your plans don’t work out.  This is amazing because I hadn’t realized that I had forgotten how to.  

Most of all, this year for me has been a year of healing.  And it’s been a wonderful one.  

You see, I’ve learned that after the healing, there is glorious newness in the Father.  The kind that you forgot was possible.  This is because when your wounds have turned to scars, though scars live on as an eternal reminder of your wound, they can’t bleed or hurt quite as badly as they once did.  

And I think that’s who Jesus is.  The healer of our wounds and the refuge from our scars until that magical day when our scars become just another part of our story.

And then, He is the perfect author of that story, the one who sheds light into darkness and ties all of our stories together into the mystery of His kingdom, where He unites us all-- beauty, flaws, scars, stories, and all-- into the most beautiful flawless tapestry.

He is a master at renewal.

Standing at the end of the year and the beginning of another, I feel like I’m new for the first time in a long time.  And this is a good new.  This is exciting.  I’m suddenly aware that I have stories to tell.  Good stories of what God has been making me to be.  And I feel like I’m just awakening.