Happy New Year!!!

Lauren and Ryan both go back to school tomorrow! I am a bit sad, a bit anxious, a bit excited, and a bit uncertain. For some reason, this new start to the school year is reminding me of New Year’s resolutions. Although, the year on the calendar is not changing, in a way this seems like the start to a new year more than it did in January. So I am challenging myself. It’s a new school year, and I feel called to make some changes.

Last year was difficult, at the start of the school year, I was studying for the NCE which was enough to make a girl crazy in and of itself. However, I was also still trudgeing through depths of past issues and depression. I was not the mom I wanted to be last year. Too consumed with my own issues and depression, I was not emotionally available to my children or my husband like I wanted to be. Not that I am faulting myself for these things, this was just a difficult season in my life where some baggage needed to be dropped, painfully dropped. But this year is different, it is kind of a year of new beginnings. This year, no matter what I am feeling, He IS my hope and my strength.

This year I want to not just struggle through the days, and go to bed at night thinking I survived another day. I want to enjoy myself, not selfishly, but I want to enjoy giving to others. I want to enjoy loving people. I want to enjoy loving my kids, and loving my husband. I want to enjoy cooking for them. I want to enjoy sending cards to their teachers just because I know how hard of a job they have. I want to enjoy reaching out to the students I see, because God may use me to speak the truth of His love in their lives. I want God to work an incredible amazing work in the moms group I lead. I want to go on a walk to Emmaus. I want to refocus my passions. I want to give depression a kick in the booty once and for all, and tell Satan that He doesn’t stand a chance against God’s truth. It’s a new year. It’s a new beginning. I pray that God will do some amazing things, and I want to drop myself at His feet as a willing vessel to do His will. I just want to love, like Jesus loved, holding nothing back.