Making resolutions is a favourite hobby of mine. It's part list-making, part unbridled optimism, and part beating yourself up - three things which come very naturally to me, and so I am enthusiastic about bringing them together.
I have never worried about limiting my resolution-making to "the season" (as it were) but I do tend to get a bit reflective at this time of year, and that usually leads to some resolution-type thoughts floating around waiting to be attended to.
I'm rather pragmatic about all of this, by the way - I reckon a couple of months (weeks? days?) of something good which then fizzles out is better than no time spent on the good thing at all. And you never know, this might be the time something sticks and my life is changed forever (the aforementioned unbridled optimism really does come in handy).
So today - as I have woken up late (late being 8.45am. Little Miss slept for 14 HOURS bless her wonderful soul!), packed bags, said goodbye to family, driven home, unpacked bags, cried a little over the last Miranda, and still not watered the poor, flagging Christmas tree - there has been a list taking shape in the back of my head that I am finally allowing myself to attend to.
I'm not going to share everything on that list, but as item number seven appeared on the paper, I realised words had been put to something that's been hanging around the outskirts of my consciousness for a while, and that I wanted to record it here.What I wrote was as follows:
"Be less afraid, less ashamed and more me."
To be honest, I wouldn't exactly call that a resolution; it's very different to the other items on my list. I like to set myself quantifiable goals, things I can tick off when they have been achieved. (For the record, I regularly add things to lists after I have done them, just to tick them off. I'm not even ashamed about it.) But as I let my brain wander over the things I plan to focus on this year, I got that funny feeling in my stomach which I have come to associate with God's voice breaking in to my situation (by the way, does anyone else get the stomach thing? Probably no-one does). And then I wrote that sentence.
And I realised I have lost some of my freedom. I don't know what exactly has been the cause. Possibly the transition I've made over the last 18 months from "woman" to "mother" - it is the best thing I have done or will ever do, but it does some funny things to your understanding of your Self. Possibly the move we made in September, leaving our community of more than ten years to follow God's call to a new job (a job share actually, between me and my husband) in a new church in a new city - I've never experienced having to begin again and establish so many relationships from scratch before.
I guess it doesn't really matter what the cause has been. What matters is that I don't remain where I am today. I believe that there is more to life than this. (I actually can't type that without thinking of the Zoolander quote I once used on some Alpha publicity "There must be more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking.") More to life than a feeling of needing to hold back in case...in case what? In case vague fears become reality and I am rejected somehow, or laughed at, or I fail.
I am looking for the freedom to be just exactly who I am and to accept that is all I can be and to know that it is enough. And I want to experience the fullness of life that I believe is part and parcel of that freedom. And I so badly need Jesus, in whom I believe all freedom and true fullness of life can be found.
So, to make a start down the path to being less afraid, less ashamed and more me (and handily beginning resolution number four), over the next couple of weeks I will be meditating on and memorising this verse, spoken by Jesus:
"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they may have life, and have it abundantly." (John 10:10, NASB)
Are you making any resolutions for 2015?
