A few minutes ago, I lay in bed tossing and turning and grappling with a sleep that refused to come easy. Adam snored loudly, which he never does. My heart tumbled around and mind flitted, unable to rest anywhere long enough to drop off into slumber. With each minute that ticked by on the clock, I felt my anxious frustration mount as I counted six hours and twenty minutes before I have to wake up, six hours and two minutes, five hours and forty-eight minutes . . . , until finally I decided on a change of scenery, if nothing but to stop myself from cursing those darn glowing numbers counting minutes of sleep I wasn't getting.
Now here I sit, on my trusty faded green couch, contemplating the first day of a new year. Trying to ignore the insistent voices in my head that are reminding me how quickly I failed to achieve any of my goals. Really? They mock. The first day? You drank four diet cokes, ate a whole bag of sour patch kids, your house is a wreck with four piles of unfolded laundry in various stages of cleanliness, and the sink sits piled high with unwashed dishes. So much for growing up and acting like a responsible adult this year.
And so I'm deciding right now, right here in the too-short hours before dawn, that 2013 is the year I finally stop listening to them. To every voice that whispers I am not good enough, to every real and imagined force that tells me I'm an ineffective mother or a poor-excuse-for-a-housewife. To the pressures to be a "good Christian woman" (whatever that means), and to the voices that remind me I still need to lose those last ten pounds, need to do more, be more, whatever.
2013, my friends, I'm declaring as the year of freedom. The year I learn to listen only to the voice of my Savior, however still and small it might be. Again. Because this is a lesson I've wrestled over and tumbled through and back into a million and one times at least. But I need to bump into it again, it appears.
Exhaustion and busyness marked the latter-half of 2012 (ya'll could probably have told me that already, right?). Tonight, when my friend Ashlee asked me what my favorite moment was from the last year, I couldnt' think of a single one. I could mention plenty of times I enjoyed, lots of good days and fun memories, things that made me happy. But my favorite moment? The singled-out-time that sang richly of a deeper truth like a poet or a painter? I couldn't capture it in words because I couldn't remember amidst the blur of busyness. So this year, I refuse to miss them. The moments I need to be treasuring and storing up in my heart. The truths that God longs to whisper to me both in quiet and in chaos.
Because the kind of peace that lets me enjoy the moments of my life? That peace doesn't come from an absence of chaos. It comes from the presence of Christ. And I have a feeling that the more closely I rest in that presence and listen to that voice, the more quiet all those other voices will become.
So here's to 2013: to freedom, to peace, to no longer listening to all the voices that tell us we aren't good enough. . . Join me, if you'd like, I'd love to have you. Because I have a feeling that a whole bunch of pretty-amazing women (and some guys too -- hi friends!) who stop listening to the world and start listening to our God? I'm pretty sure we can change the world. Or rather, change our hearts to be more like Jesus, and HE can change the world through us!
Now here I sit, on my trusty faded green couch, contemplating the first day of a new year. Trying to ignore the insistent voices in my head that are reminding me how quickly I failed to achieve any of my goals. Really? They mock. The first day? You drank four diet cokes, ate a whole bag of sour patch kids, your house is a wreck with four piles of unfolded laundry in various stages of cleanliness, and the sink sits piled high with unwashed dishes. So much for growing up and acting like a responsible adult this year.
And so I'm deciding right now, right here in the too-short hours before dawn, that 2013 is the year I finally stop listening to them. To every voice that whispers I am not good enough, to every real and imagined force that tells me I'm an ineffective mother or a poor-excuse-for-a-housewife. To the pressures to be a "good Christian woman" (whatever that means), and to the voices that remind me I still need to lose those last ten pounds, need to do more, be more, whatever.
2013, my friends, I'm declaring as the year of freedom. The year I learn to listen only to the voice of my Savior, however still and small it might be. Again. Because this is a lesson I've wrestled over and tumbled through and back into a million and one times at least. But I need to bump into it again, it appears.
Exhaustion and busyness marked the latter-half of 2012 (ya'll could probably have told me that already, right?). Tonight, when my friend Ashlee asked me what my favorite moment was from the last year, I couldnt' think of a single one. I could mention plenty of times I enjoyed, lots of good days and fun memories, things that made me happy. But my favorite moment? The singled-out-time that sang richly of a deeper truth like a poet or a painter? I couldn't capture it in words because I couldn't remember amidst the blur of busyness. So this year, I refuse to miss them. The moments I need to be treasuring and storing up in my heart. The truths that God longs to whisper to me both in quiet and in chaos.
Because the kind of peace that lets me enjoy the moments of my life? That peace doesn't come from an absence of chaos. It comes from the presence of Christ. And I have a feeling that the more closely I rest in that presence and listen to that voice, the more quiet all those other voices will become.