Well, here we are at the end of another year. I don’t really make New Year’s resolutions, so you’re not getting any of those in this post. However, I do think this is a good time of year to reflect on how we’ve grown and changed over the past year. Personally, I like to reflect on the blessings and answered prayers from our loving God because it makes me hopeful for the coming years, and it continually amazes me that God even answers the prayers and desires of our heart that we weren’t even aware that we should ask. Our Father knows us better than we know ourselves.
So, on this last day of 2008, I’m going to be totally unoriginal and point you towards some other blog posts that have spoken to me over the past few days.
First, this post by Pete Wilson over at Without Wax is fabulous. When people ask why I quit my job in this economy with no definite plans for my next steps, I want to point them to Pete’s post and the passage that he references from Psalm 39:
4 “Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
Remind me that my days are numbered—how fleeting my life is.
5 You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.
My entire lifetime is just a moment to you;
at best, each of us is but a breath.”
Life is way too short to be working at the wrong job, trying to please others to get ahead in life, and ignoring God’s calling to a higher purpose.
Okay, one more. I stumbled upon this post by JMOM over at Lots of Scotts. She included this beautiful interpretation (author unknown) that God used to soothe my heart:
I made her. She is different. She’s unique. With love I formed her in her mother’s womb. I fashioned her with great joy. I remember with great pleasure the day I created her. (Psalm 139:13-16)
I love her smile. I love her ways. I love to hear her laugh and the silly things she says and does. She brings me great pleasure. (Psalm 139:17)
I made her pretty and not beautiful, because I knew her heart and knew she would be vain. I wanted her to search out her heart and to learn it would be Me in her that would make her beautiful and would draw friends to her. (I Peter 3:3-5)
I made her in such a way that she would need Me. I made her a little more lonesome than she would like to be, only because I want her to turn to Me in her loneliness. Only because I need for her to lean to and depend on Me. I know her heart. I know if I had not made her like this she would go her own way and forget about Me, her Creator. (Psalm 62:5-8)
I have given her many good and happy things because I love her. (Psalm 84:11 and Romans 8:32)
Because I love her, I have seen her broken heart and the tears she has cried alone. I have cried with her and had a broken heart too. (Psalm 56:8)
Many times she has stumbled and fallen alone, only because she would not hold My Hand. So many lessons she has learned the hard way, because she would not listen to My Voice. (Isaiah 53:6)
She is mine. I made her then I bought her because I love her. (Romans 5:8)
I have to reshape and remold her, to renew in her what I want her to be. It has not been easy for her or for me. (Jeremiah 29:11)
I want her to be conformed to My Image. This high goal I have set for her because I love her. (2 Corinthians 2:14)
Wow. So, I’m (surprisingly) going to make a New Year’s resolution after all – obviously not what I intended to do when I started writing this post. I resolve to post the messages above somewhere that I will see them every day in 2009. Thanks to JMOM and Pete for the original blog posts that inspired this one.
Happy New Year!
Allison K. Flexer, Author 
Thanks for the reminder that life is too short to be doing things that aren’t worthwhile or worrying about things that don’t deserve our energy.
Also, I think you should resolve to see me at least twice a week for the whole of the 2009 year.
your24yearoldfriendwhowantstobejustlikeyou
Allison,
Thanks for this powerful reminder. I am going to post these somewhere as well! Happy New Year, and I’m excited to continue growing in friendship with you this year. You are a beautiful woman of God!
Reblogged this on friecefabolousfree and commented:
Such a beauitful blog! I Been searching for the words and she explains it so well!