(Photo from Pixabay)
If you know me, you know I’m a planner and a goal setter. I like making progress and working towards things. When I started 2023, I had ten goals and the expectation that this year I would have the time to complete them. Having wrapped up something else the year before, I thought I would have even more time than I had before.
Instead, I had even less time than I thought I would. When I thought I would be writing was when I was doing other things. Like going on fun trips with family, and working with Shorty, and dealing with a new dog. I was doing things I’d never expected to do. And it was so good.
But there was something else alongside it too. Where I’d thought I’d feel confident, I was unsure. Where I thought I’d be was not where I was. I was anxious and worried, frustrated and angry at times, and dismayed at how little progress I was making on my writing and learning. I listened to fear and lies too often. I hurried when I should’ve slowed, and dawdled when I should’ve moved. I took my eyes off of what mattered and focused on the wrong things.
This wasn’t an easy year, and it wasn’t what I expected. It was hard and good, beautiful and challenging, all at once. A year where God took and God gave in a way I didn’t think He would but am so glad, so thankful, that He did.
That’s what grace is, isn’t it? This wild, unplanned, unexpected blessing of the favor and love of God? Who can predict grace and plan it out? No one. It can only be received. And sometimes receiving it means letting it disrupt everything, letting it tear through and upend all of what you thought, what you planned, what you expected. Letting it bring you into a struggle and leave with a blessing of hard won change.
I’m still not sure I understand this year that was wild, crazy, chock full of goodness, challenging. A storm of unexpected blessings raining down. I made mistakes and had triumphs and lost my way and found it.
And there was grace for all of it. He was there for all of it.
I don’t think this year will be any more predictable than the last one. But I do know one thing. There is one thing I can count on, one thing I’m still learning to trust. One thing I need to believe.
God is still near. He is still good.
He is still God.
So, I will have my expectations, I will have my goals and my dreams. But I will try to hold them with loose hands now, because I know that God might, and probably does, have something better in store. I will try to trust His plan over my own. While I’m still learning all the lessons from this year, I don’t think I will forget them or the incredible blessings this year had.
So, if your year didn’t go to plan either, whether for good or bad, take heart. There is grace for all of it.
And for this next year, hold your plans and expectations with loose hands. Because loose, open hands are the ones best able to receive good, wild blessings, and grace for the hard times when they come. And remember…
God is still near.
He is still good.
He is still God.
Until the next post, may you be blessed,
Abby