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Happy New Year's Eve and Celebrating This Chapter!

Celebrating 2013 and looking forward to 2014!
I love the New Year.  For me, I feel God's mercy and grace as I give to Him my mistakes, wasted time, sin and regrets.  I ask Him to redeem the year and use it to bring us to where He wants us to be in the next. 
I believe God enjoys celebrations.  He celebrated on the day after creation!  Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and His mercy.  He instituted the feast in the OT to help His people remember His work in their lives.  He encouraged altars to be built as markers in time for the generations to come.
He is God and will do His work in us and through us.  He will use events, hardships and losses to mold us into the people He wants us to be.  He uses people to sharpen us and to show us the places in us we need to grow.  Even the people we do not like,  are in our lives for a reason.  

For us to be thankful for. 
"Rejoice Always," and "Give Thanks in All Things!"  These words are not a suggestion.  They are commanded.
He tells us to be contented.  To rejoice in suffering and persecution.  To think on what is just, pure and holy.
Life can be so hard.  It is sooo good as well.  Our time here is short.
 As a culture we are so used to looking for the bad.  Focusing on the faults of others and what is wrong.  Seeking whom we can blame for our lives.

We strive and struggle, simply to control relationships and outcomes. 
What would happen if we spent our days in 2014 (even just a few of them) focusing on the strengths of others and the Goodness of God.
No, I've not gone all soft.  Confrontation and truth are still needed.  Truth in love.  However,  love is a choice.  Being thankful for all things, is as well.  As a choice...not a feeling.
Things I regret?  My selfishness and inconsideration.  Times I've taken important others for granted.  

How silly those times of trying to prove my point or explain my views seem in the light of time.  If only I would simply, listen.  To live in contentment in every relationship and fully love and accept.
My practice on New Year's Eve is to celebrate the year, confess my failures and intentionally close one chapter and open another.

I HAVE A LOT TO DO IN 2014! I cannot afford the energy it takes to carry all of 2013 with me.

Now, for one last all-nighter with the kids at church.  These get harder for me every year.  Last year, I swore them off forever.  This year, I want to make one more night of memories with my youngest son.



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