Renew

Today when my alarm went off, there was a whitish gray glow to my room. The sky looked like a bland off-white, and I sighed at another sunless winter day. However, I heard a familiar, dear sound which made me rush to the window. Across the street was a man scraping his car from snow, and all around me was a world of white.

The longer I spend away from the Midwest, the more I treasure each snowfall. I squealed with delight. Even though it was Sunday and no chance that this snow would have any bearing on school cancellations, it was one of the most joyful moments of my year thus far.

As I walked down the hill toward the city, I was filled with the wonder of the purity of the morning. The way snow purifies the gray, drab of the city. The light snowflakes made my hair sparkle and glisten as they melted. It lay thick on the branches whispering my word of the year:

renew.

Renew seems like an oxymoron. How can something that is not new be made new again?

But it's the idea of restoring, replenishing, reviving, re-establishing, resuming, recovering.
To begin again. The essence of the Gospel.

And just like my footprints left new tracks in the freshly fallen snow, renew in 2018 means going back to the old habits I had established before my busyness, before my chaos, before I lost my balance.

Renew starts with the transformation of my mind through scripture:"...be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." I have lots of little moments of down time. Time I'm always filling with checking my newsfeeds, or browsing my favorite pictures. I'm trying to fill this down time with eternal time. With storing away verses for later. For taking the tiny seeds of a day and sowing them into eternity.

Renew means making Sabbath rest a priority. It means sanctifying time to find peace in the Lord's presence, and in the presence of those who draw me closer to Him. I know these next few months are going to be some of the busiest, and if I don't take time to renew, I will burn out.

I also know there's going to be a lot of New that this year brings. And it's exciting, like a fresh snowfall and the unmarred whiteness of a forest trail. But I love the idea that in the middle of my New, there is nothing new for the Lord. I want to acknowledge the consistency and immutability of my Lord. For Him it's renew.

Renew means to look forward to Heaven. To do things with an eternal mindset, recognizing that "our outer self is wasting away, but our inner self is being renewed day by day." I don't want to set my heart and mind on earthly things. I want to focus on eternity.

And so today, I was so thankful for a palpable reminder of renew. Of the old being clothed in white, full of hope, purity and beauty.

My Lighthouse, My Guide

If you've been following this blog for any amount of time, you know that even if I don't blog much during the year, I always have lots to think about and write about around the new year.

For the past three years I've been intentionally choosing a word for each year. I love looking back on these years marked by a theme or a word.

2015: Brave
2016: Presence
2017: Guide

I am always humbled by the way that word becomes so relevant in that year. How it goes from being a self-selected word to a truly deep, spiritual stamp on my year.

And Guide was just the same. Last January when I chose the word, I actually wrote the following:

As I think about the year 2017, there isn't a specific or obvious decision I'm facing that would mandate "GUIDE" as the word of the year. I'm not reconsidering my job, or moving across the world, or any other wild transitions. It was for this reason that I was ready to chuck the word "guide" aside and begin the search for another more "relevant" word.

I laugh quietly to myself at this rather arrogant declaration -- the way I thought I knew how my year would go. In 2017 my relationship with Chris went from being a developing dating relationship, to a committed engagement. And for us, that required us to continually lean in to our Guide to lead us on this delicate path.

Focusing on God as Guide this year required giving Him time, Him presence to be still and listen to Him. To seek Him out, even in moments when I thought I already knew what I wanted. And I definitely failed a lot. Even though my longing was to wake up each day with the expectancy of asking the Guide to show me His way for my day, that didn't happen. Not even close. But instead of dwelling on failures, I choose to see all the ways He led despite my shortcomings.

Beyond my transition of getting engaged, this year also saw the marriage of one of my best friends to one of my Hungarian family members and her move to Hungary, and my own brother's marriage just a week later.

As we roadtripped across the country for these wedding festivities, we encountered several lighthouses. These pillars of hope and guidance have become a symbol for me in my faith, especially after wrestling through a season of doubt right before moving to Hungary. I loved seeing these lighthouses once again, as Rend Collective's "My Lighthouse" played in my mind.

This song has been the anthem for my year: 

In my wrestling and in my doubts
In my failures You won't walk out
Your great love will lead me through
You are the peace in my troubled sea

 

In the silence, You won't let go
In the questions, Your truth will hold
Your great love will lead me through
You are the peace in my troubled sea

 

I won't fear what tomorrow brings
With each morning I'll rise and sing
My God's love will lead me through
You are the peace in my troubled sea

 

My lighthouse, my lighthouse
Shining in the darkness, I will follow You
My lighthouse, my lighthouse
I will trust the promise
You will carry me safe to shore

 

Fire before us, You're the brightest
You will lead us through the storms

 

While I was in Scotland this summer with Chris's family, one of our favorite activities was to watch the boats come in and out from the harbor.

 

The beauty of the harbor and the sea was absolutely mesmerizing. But one morning there appeared to be more commotion than usual at the harbor. One of the young sailors had made a mistake and ended up with his sailboat overturned in the sea, sinking as the water poured in. I'm not sure what happened, but I overheard several of the more experienced sailors talking about the foolishness of the sailor who had made an "elementary" error, and therefore lost his boat. The way they talked, it sounded as though they had tried to talk him out of setting out but he hadn't heeded their advice.

This left a great impression on me, and made me stop and think about times when I chose to ignore the Lord's guidance, even if only for my own pride: thinking I know better than He does.

And yet, the Lord has continued to be so abundantly gracious to me, not allowing me to capsize, but rather waiting for me to come to my senses, to come back to Him, and to seek His face.

Psalm 25, my guidance Psalm floats before me: He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way (verse 9). In order to be led, I must be humble. I must acknowledge that I don't know the way. 

It was in those moments of humbling myself before Him that He led. More beautifully than I ever could have imagined. In the moments when I was still and waited for Him, He showed up. 

And at the end of 2017, gazing back down the now brightly lit path that once stood shrouded before me, I see all the ways He led. The ways He hemmed me in, behind and before. Though for each of the places I recognize His hand, there are thousands that I may never know. 

2017 has been a blessed year because my Lord has been my Shepherd. He has led me beside quiet waters and comforted me with his rod and staff. He has laid a feast before me. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me into 2018, and beyond.