A New Year

The turning of the year gives us an opportunity to reflect on the past year and look ahead to the new one. This New Year's Eve, I didn't feel particularly inclined to reflect or look ahead. I was actually feeling pretty gloomy—sitting alone in bed, with nothing but my journal for company. Now, my journal is generally pretty good company, but the muffled sound of fireworks outside, and the social media that I couldn't help but check kept reminding me that it was a night for celebrating, for being with family and friends, for happy memories and new starts.

The contents of my journal from that evening are not particularly cheerful.

But I did take some time to reflect on something that has been on my mind a lot recently—the power of words, specifically the inner words that I say to myself and dwell on and repeat again and again. Lately, my internal dialogue has been pretty discouraging. There's a lot that I'm struggling with, and it's easy to feel like that's just "the reality of life". But while I do believe it is important to be honest about the hard stuff, I also think that I've been focusing on it too much lately, at the expense of being thankful or remembering that God is with me in the mess.

So as I move forward into this new year, I want to be more disciplined about what I let my mind dwell on, and what kinds of things I repeat again and again in my internal dialogue. I know that's a super vague goal that isn't "SMART" (or whatever the acronym is... specific, measurable, whatever), but that is the best that I can do at the moment.

One tangible thing I am doing this year, though, is being a part of a group of people that will be reading through the Psalms over the course of the year, reflecting on them, and sharing our reflections with each other online. I'm really excited for it, and it will one way that I can be filling my mind with God's word, rather than my own worries. You're welcome to check it out too, if that is something that would interest you: A Year in the Psalms

I wish each of you a Happy New Year. Thanks for being a part of my life through this blog.