As the final countdown began and the ball dropped, my friend brought up the calamity in her heart to all of us.
‘I don’t know how I’m supposed to be feeling right now…’
We kind of laughed, but we also knew it was a serious comment. And, I get it.
It’s a new year, and every time another one rolls around we are inundated with thousands of comments, posts, questions about our regrets and highlights of the past year and our resolutions and dreams of the upcoming year. It’s like it’s a big deal or something… but, mostly (to me, anyway) it just feels like another day. I always feel like I’m ‘supposed’ to feel something more though.
Despite the celebration that accompanies the first of the year, there’s never been this feeling of a ‘fresh start’. The only thing it was nice for was beginning a devotional… but that’s mostly because all of them start with January 1 and it was easier to keep track of it that way.
This year feels different though. This year feels different because, for the first time, I’m truly moving toward something completely new in January. 2013 is actually a year of significant life change for me.
I cried about it today.
Because, yes, it’s exciting and new and different and the possibilities seem endless for where my life might go from here… but it’s also overwhelming. So overwhelming that I feel unable to actually process through my thoughts and emotions on the subject.
I don’t even know if I’m scared. I think I just mostly feel uncertain. And, for someone who doesn’t typically do change well, I’m about to swallow a whole lot of it at once. I can’t really begin to imagine what my life will look like, what routines I might fall into, or who I might journey through life with.
I’ve been asked a few times what my resolutions for 2013 are, and I’ve sarcastically responded with, ‘to get a new life’. But, really… I’m probably mostly in a place of recognizing how wonderfully freeing it is to let go of expectation, and I’d long to embrace that freedom more. Letting go of expectation for how this year should go, how this transition will be, what kind of job I’ll have, how I’ll handle schoolwork, the things that I’ll have to spend money on, the types of friends I’ll make, how I’ll spend my time, the relationships that will matter most to me, the amount of time I’ll get to spend with family, the career I envision myself having, the ways God will move, the ways He will prove Himself faithful, the ways He will grow me and change me, the ways I will run away…and the ways that He will continually bring me back to His side.
I think I can only expect that God will be God, in the fullness of who He is. Which means that He is faithful, good, righteous, holy, just… filled with grace and love. I can expect Him to be these things (and so much more), but I can have no expectation of how He will be these things. So, even in expecting God to be God, I still need to let go of my expectation of what I think that means and allow Him to be the fullness of what that actually means (because in my experience it almost always differs from what I would have expected).
It’s a new year.
It’s a new life.
But…there’s reassurance that He’s still the same God. Yesterday, today and forevermore. I can still trust Him to be God. So, even in the midst of the overwhelming…I can let go and exist in the freedom that comes with knowing that I’m cared for, loved, provided for, deeply and intimately known. I can let go and exist in the freedom that all of that doesn’t have to look a certain way, either.
And, no…it’s not easy. But, it’s better. I’d rather live in the better…in the freedom that accompanies the better, in allowing God to live outside of the confines of the box that I’ve tried to house Him in for so long.
There’s hope and excitement in that.
So… here’s to relinquishing all expectations on this upcoming year and simply trusting God to do His thing (even though I have no idea what that means or what that looks like).
Cheers.