2012?

Here it comes again, the time of year where we reflect on what has happened and look forward to whats ahead. This year however, I find myself just stuck. I can't seem to find the drive to want to think about the future because of everything that has happened this year As much as I know it is not helpful to hold on to the past, I can't seem to let go of my own shortcomings, relationships gone south, or the success I had over year ago.

I admit it, I have become just tired of trying. Trying to change, trying to be better than I am now trying to move forward. I have never been good at letting things go. I just shove them inside until they can't be contained any longer. I just don't know how to. I feel like I have been tripping and getting knocked down again so much that it feels better just to stay on the ground.

If I have learned anything in 2011, it has been that there is something I need that only God can give me. I keep trying to look for some person to give it to me; to make me feel secure, loved and significant but all I have found there is emptiness. Though this well, I keep going back to the same old things that cannot satisfy.

What really gets me is that I have been here before. I have come to a place where I am unsettled about my life and decided to get up and change it. To not be a victim of my past any longer but to make a decision to believe God had a way out for me. But now, it's difficult to have that same courage because I have been convinced that the love that I knew before is not available to me anymore because of what I have done.

Over the past few weeks though, God has been showing me that He does still love me in spite of what I have done. He is showing He & people do really love me, maybe in ways I have never realize or have seen before. My resolve to push away the love, however, seems to also grow all the more. Probably because it is easier to not do anything or own up to my own wrongs so that I can move past them.

I think God is showing me what it is like to be completely loved and cared for and is trying at every opportunity to show me, in His way, not mine. Honestly, it scares me. It scares me because I don't know what it is like to believe I am completely loved. I don't know what it is like to be in relationship with a perfect person who sees my worst and still fights so I can have the best. It's what I want and what I need but I won't let myself have it.

Seeing glimpses of Gods love has sparked my hope and faith and I am beginning to consider that I can experience better, even writing this has helped. 2011 has shown me that surrendering to God is the only way to be free. 2012 will be a year of deciding what I want for my life, my family, my career and my relationship with God. If I want to settle for what the world can give me or fight for the blessing that God has promised. The key for me is finding the courage to believe that I can be enough & I can be faithful to that decision.