It's 2013!

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2013.

When did time suddenly start to go so fast? It seems like the older I get, the faster time ticks by. It makes my mind spin if I stop to think about it. I swear just yesterday I was the nerdy girl playing the spoons in our 4th grade music production (I thought I was so cool) and now I'm all married up with a baby boy and a shaggy pup while living in a little bungalow.

I found myself thinking about the new year throughout the past few days. I love the feeling of a fresh start; a blank slate so to speak. It's fun for me to think back over the past few New Years. The parties, people, resolutions, and hopes while ringing in the new year. I've made so many different goals over the past couple of years. Goals that made me feel like maybe, just maybe, if I tried a little harder and reached a little further, I could attain more.  Be more.  "This year is my year," I would think to myself.

Needless to say, these goals never really stuck (surprise!). I maybe made it a week or two, but then something would cause me to get distracted. After a while I stopped even making goals because of past failures. I knew that I couldn't keep up with what I wanted to attain, so I didn't even try. I thought I kept myself safe that way.

Now today, as I sit curled up listening to my little boy sleep, all I can think about is how thankful I am that I have a relationship with God where I don't have to keep trying to prove myself to others or to myself. I don't have to prove anything or do anything on my own. I don't have to come up with complex fixes and plans to becoming a stronger, prettier, smarter, more accomplished person. I now realize (and often have to remind myself) that I will continue to fall short when I depend upon my own strength and resources. I always feel like I'm missing out and not good enough when my thought pattern and perspective is only focused on myself and my own strength. The cool thing? When I strive to aline ourselves with God and his perspective + mind-set, he's right there.  Helping me.  Providing strength.  Picking me back up again and again.  Re-directing me again and again...

and again.

Because my strength alone is definitely not enough.

All of this to say, I'm still not sure what resolutions I have for 2013. To be honest, I'm hesitant to make any. I know that I want to grow stronger as a woman, a wife, a mom, a friend. But I also know that I want to trust that God has the best scenario and story for me to live. I want him to be the author of that... not me.