On Moving Forwards

We've reached that point in the year when it's customary to look back at the year we are leaving behind. To take stock of the days behind us and pass judgement on them as either a success, or a failure. To look at that list of goals or resolutions we penned back when the year was fresh, and determine if we have achieved what we set out for, or if we managed to fall short. 

It's easy to face the new year, when you are coming off a year with little to no turmoil. When you can count on only two hands the amount of heartache that has come into your life. When you can look at that list of goals and check off at least half and feel that even if you didn't quite achieve them all, you did pretty OK. 

Ann Voskamp said, " How in the world do you step hopeful into the next year, when you tripped messy through the last year? How do you stand brave with all the smiling rest and ring in the new year when the old year still feels a bit like a millstone around the neck? What if everyone else is making New Year's resolutions and you just want New You solutions? "

It's easy to sit in reflection of a year that has been less then ideal, and feel like you want a do-over. To wish that you could go back and change this or that, or to look at that list of goals and things you wanted to accomplish, and feel like a world class failure. To dwell on all the bad choices that you made that led to that list not getting checked off, or to want to start again with the same things you always focus on. To get stuck in a rut that will no likely, have you sitting in the same place at this time next year. 

Phillipians 3:13-14 reads: “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead…I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” 

For 2014, I'm moving forward. I'm letting go of the past hurt and disappointments. I am done dwelling on the why-nots and the why-can'ts and the how-comes. I am not going to spend any more mental energy thinking about where we have been, or where I have been, or what didn't get done or didn't work, and I am moving forward. Every time I fall, instead of getting caught in the trap of "here we are again", I am going to pick myself up, and start over again. Looking at how I can learn, and how it can help me to grow. 

Care to join me?