New Year's Thoughts During Nap Time

Spending the week in Memphis with my family, and enjoying this rare chance that we all have to be together. Playing games and puzzles with Noah, watching movies with Andrew, visiting with Amanda as she cooks... I wish the world was smaller. I wish my nephew could just run down the street to visit Auntie Connie's house in Fort Wayne, and then go around the corner at have play time at Grammie and Poppa's house in Winston-Salem. Maybe that's how heaven will be? It is Noah's naptime right now, so I'm taking a few moments to catch up on emails and read other people's blogs, and all of a sudden I realize it is the last day of the year. Where did this year go??

Last year at this time I was in St. Louis for the Urbana conference. I had no idea what the year would hold, had no clue what I would find if I ever got to Indiana and if I would survive two months there, and no reason to believe it would be so great that I would want to stay a whole year. I didn't make any New Year resolutions last year... I was too busy getting excited about all the plans God had for me. I didn't know what they were, but I knew they were good (Jer. 29:11). So at the end of the year - instead of being frustrated at the promises I didn't keep and my plans that didn't work out - I can reflect back on how some of God's plans were revealed and how I got to experience the blessings he had stored up for me.

I think I'll do that again in 2011... no resolutions, just eager anticipation of what God will do! Oh, I have goals... I'm developing a reading list, I'd like to learn to do something that is domestically useful and something that is just crazy fun, I'd like to make a new friend - "a real kindred spirit," and I'd like to travel to a new place. And as always, I want to make a difference somewhere, somehow, in someone's life. But how these things play out, we'll just wait and see! And I'm trusting that in the midst of learning and growing in the next twelve months, God will continue to lead me step-by-step in his will.

Happy New Year to you all!