New Year's Eve...Eve

 

It is New Year’s Eve…Eve.  Two more days left in 2021.

 

I heard you just say, “Good riddance.”  I heard you say, “About time.”  I am over this year too.  I ready for a New Year as much as anyone. 

 

Yet, too often the New Year can feel a lot like the Old Year.  Just because we put up a new calendar, doesn’t mean everything is suddenly amazing.  We may try to make resolutions and will ourselves to live a new way, but the ruts and routines of our lives are well-worn and established.  Today, I want to invite you to remember an invitation from Jon Acuff:

 

Forgive your former self.

Enjoy your present self.

Be kind to your future self.

 

Is there anything you need to let go of from 2021?  Pain or anger at a person who will never say, “Sorry”?  Have you been living in a way over the last two years that has left you drained and depleted?  I want to leave behind in 2021 the daily meetings in my mind between fear, anxiety, stress and strain that they demand I attend…and bring them all donuts.  I am not even all that fond of donuts. What might need to be forgiven today for yourself and for the sake of your self in 2022?  Remembering ~ forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting, but it does mean that the hurt doesn’t hold the steering wheel of your life either.

 

How might you enjoy your present self?  I love the invitation to enjoy my-today-self.  Not that awesome version of yourself that you think by the end of January when you will have lost twenty pounds, have connected with God in ways that cause you to levitate, repaired all broken relationships, and solved world peace.  I mean, leave something for February!!  Enjoy your less-than-perfect ~~ YET still made in God’s image self today.  Start that as a prayer practice for every day in 2022.

 

Finally, be kind to your future self.  I do this by getting rest, exercise, reading, eating good food, being compassionate toward myself so that care and love can flow from me.

 

What do you need to forgive?

How can you enjoy yourself/others/God in this new day?

How can you be kind so that tomorrow, and every tomorrow in 2022, can be a new day?

 

May those questions sit and sing out melody to you this day.  Amen.