Reflection on reflecting -

First thing's first, MERRY CHRISTMAS. 

I hope that everyone had such an amazing holiday and sweet time spent with family and friends.

I took a little Holiday break from my blog to focus on family and just to soak up this season. But as I was anticipating and planning this post, I went back to my posts from this time last year. Specifically my "new year" post. As I was reading I realized that I hadn't accomplished barely anything I had hoped to accomplish. Not just the petty little things either... but the big and important things as well.
2015 was not at all the year that I thought it was going to be. It brought so many challenges and hardships, and if i can be honest, I let it stomp all over me.
I know the new year is a few days away, but as I sit and reflect on this year and even reflect on the way I approached this year last year, I don't want to look back on 2015 as being a year of regret. Or a year of hurt. Of hardship. Of change that I didn't always like. Rather, I want to look at it as the year that woke me up.
You know how sometimes in life you lose sight of where you're going? That's what happened to me this year. And I think part of me was in denial about that, because I didn't want to believe it myself. The truth is that we are human. Sometimes we lose our footing. Sometimes we stumble.
That was me. Stumbling around, desperately trying to grab hold of what I thought I needed. When in reality, all I really needed was to be still, stop trying to do my own thing, and listen to God.
Have you ever had a realization like that? It's kind of like a slap in the face. But a very necessary, done-in-love, kind of slap in the face.

As the new year quickly approaches, I am going to choose to not look back negatively on this year.

“Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland."
Isaiah 43:18-19

Maybe you find yourself feeling like me, and looking back negatively on your year. I want to encourage you that there are better things ahead. As it says in Isaiah, God is doing a new thing. In you, and in your life. That alone is something to be so grateful and so happy for.