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.