Happy New Year and All That Jazz

Well, I see I crashed and burned last year. I posted every day in April for a challenge and never blogged again. Hm. Ok. So I've got good excuses. I have a baby and a 10-year-old. That blogging every day for a month thing wore me out. I'm busy. I'm a perfectionist so unless I can say it exactly as I want to, I just don't write at all. Yeah, that's helpful.

I love the new year. Fresh starts and all that. In fact, if I go back and re-read in January last year, I will bet you I said the exact same thing. But I do. I love the idea of having a clean slate. Of doing things better than I have done them before. So many ideas in my head. How to be a better mom. Working on writing goals. Cleaning up the house.

So. Here I sit. Again. A new year. Wanting to be better. Wanting to do better. And knowing I will fail. Again and again. Just like I did last year. But maybe the important thing is to keep trying. To not give up. So many ideas of what I want to do. But is trying harder really the answer? Isn't that what we keep doing? Maybe I need to let go of my perfectionism and just write. That's what I'm doing now. Maybe I need to let go of trying to figure everything out. And let God direct me in what I do. In the goals I set. In the resolutions I make. Maybe the only really important resolution is to decide to spend more time with God. To KNOW Him. Not for what He can give me. Not for answers to my prayer requests. Not for whatever is on my agenda. But just to KNOW Him. To spend time with Him. And let Him decide what is important. Let HIM direct my year. My month. My week. Each day.

 I read a very good blog post a little while ago. It was about falling forward. When you fail and mess up, instead of focusing on the bad, on the past, you can choose to fall forward. To focus on what's in front of you. To plunge headlong into what's before you. And really what choice do we have? To keep plodding along. Through all the ugliness and failures. Through the frustrating patterns we repeat again and again and again. That's not a very optimistic way of looking at a new year. I think I just depressed myself. But sometimes plodding is all I can do. And that's okay. Because God is always with me. In my plodding days - those days I'm overwhelmed at deciding what to have for dinner, much less anything else. And in my more hopeful days. He's there. Always.