Hey It's the New Year!!

I think for a while there I actually forgot about this blog. Shameful. And it's the new year already and my last post was in July. Huh...well, I have no excuses except that I waffle on this whole blogging thing generally. I'm glad I've done it but I'm still not sure this is truly what I want to do. What happens if the Internet fails and all my posts are lost in outerspace forever? I guess the same could be true of all my paper journals...a fire could blow up my house and all that would be gone forever too. And frankly I like typing on the computer better than I like writing long-hand. Those days are done for me.

Last year was my year to discover joy. True joy. Joy in the deepest spiritual and Biblical sense. Not to ever say that I have succeeded in learning it. But I can honestly say that I am so much more aware of what joy is now and that I am almost daily reminded to be mindful of joy in my life.

So this year I'm hoping to learn about hope. Now I say "hoping" because what typically happens for me is that the year's events tend to determine the lesson or character trait or theme in my life as opposed to me determining ahead of time what that will be. A couple years ago the main theme for my life that year was healing. God healed so many areas of my life that year and I have ever been so grateful to Him for that. Yet I didn't realize what was truly happening until midway through the year when I discovered that some things no longer hurt me or pained me the way they used to. And with that, I healed and healed and grew stronger.

Last year I certainly didn't pick joy out of a hat and decided that Yes, I want to know joy. Frankly, joy was learned through the process of at times, extreme sorrow. Joy as I learned cannot be experienced on its own; it has to have its counterpart to illuminate and deepen it and unfortunately, sorrow and pain is joy's other side. Darkness to joy's light. Death to joy's life-giving well. I may not have asked to have joy; I certainly didn't ask to experience sorrow as I did but I am profoundly thankful God grew joy on my soul's tree.

So here I am with the idea that hope might just be the theme for this year. By all accounts, the U.S. is touting that word already since they inaugurated their first black president, laying all their eggs of hope and peace in his very large basket. My dream of hope is much less lofty and weighty but important none the less. So I suppose I shall have to wait and see what God has in store for me and my family this year. What is hope's counterpart? Despair. I have seen despair and discouragement and I don't really want to invite them to my 2009 hope party. Just don't.