My finger tips feel like they can't type fast enough. So many big and beautiful thoughts are trying to rush through them. I'm excited. Excited,happy, and for the first time in a long time, I don't feel overwhelmed.
Over Christmas Chris and I flew back to Minneapolis, and for one brief moment my time there overlapped with my beautiful best friends. We got up early, snuggled into a beautiful downtown eatery, poured the coffee and started the process of filling each other in on life. Around in a circle, we took turns updating each other with the highlights and low lights of the past year. Finally it got to me.
All the things I had been wanting to share and talk about with them the entire year came bubbling up to the surface in one burst, and suddenly the only words I had were "This year was hard but good. Marriage is good. Work is good. Life is good."
Sometimes I think we say things are good when they're not because we don't want people we love to worry.
Let me tell you, 2014 WAS good. But it also left me exhausted, fearful and dry.
Most days I felt like a creaky wheel, constantly feeling out of joint and confused about how to fall back into place and find a rhythm that felt like me. I creaked quietly to myself, loudly to my husband, and tried (unsuccessfully) to stifle it most of the time.
But today, on the first bright day of 2015, I don't creak.
And it's all thanks to one little word: hope. I collided into hope when I let go of fear.
I'm not exactly sure why I was so afraid last year. Honestly it all feels a little silly. But I was afraid of possibility. I was afraid to dream because what if those dreams failed? What if I failed? Unpursued dreams might feel safer, but they're a slow and painful graveyard. They leave behind bitterness and apathy. And for me, they bred mediocrity and laziness.
But in the week leading up to 2015 I've realized something hope-birthing. I've realized God loves when we actively dream. When we pursue the things that make us glow, we open up a frontier for the miraculous. We give God room to stretch out and work in our lives. Pursuing our God-given dreams lets him work and do amazing things through us.
I'm not great at New Year resolutions (is anyone?) but if I had to set a goal of any kind this year it would be to dream and grow. Life's too short to live in constant fear of failure. I don't want to spend another moment in a shrinking cocoon of apathy. I want to live fiercely and boldly. To try things and fall into grace when I fail. But even more, I want to give God the glory when he displays his power through dreams come true.
He is sweet, and life with him is sweetest. Here's to a year dreaming at his side.