"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven..."
Ecclesiastes 3.1
Well, 2007 has come and gone. Time is so strange. I can think back to an event from mid January of last year and the images and memories are so fresh it feels like yesterday. Yet when I think back to my last quarter of quarter of college that ended just 6 months ago, there seems to be an enormous gulf of lapsed time from then to now.
I don't really believe in new year's resolutions. If I need to change something, I should change it immediately and not drag my feet waiting for some "magical" time of the year. And anyway, a new year passes every single day; we just don't stop to celebrate it until our birthday or January 1st. Still, I must admit there is something unique about this time of year. For me, it's a refreshing, painful, and hopeful time all rolled into one.
Refreshing because it's typically been time away from school and work. Time to spend with family and friends relaxing, celebrating, sleeping, eating. The enjoyable things of life.
However (at least with me), time to relax means time to think and reflect, giving rise to a remembrance of some of the painful events of the year. I can't and don't live life plagued with regrets, but it's impossible not to consider the hardships from the past year that have molded me to be the person I am right now. There is the sadness over my flaws and the consequences they carried, a sadness over missed opportunities with people and pursuits, a sadness over the time wasted on meaningless pursuits, and sadness over the pains that came into the lives of the people I love.
Yet these trials in life give me an opportunity to better know and trust God, whose grace is ever sufficient. Thus this time of year is also hopeful, as I look back and see His faithfulness in my weakness, and look forward to the great adventure that is living this short life for Him. Who knows where I'll be in a year. If you told me on January 1st of last year that I'd be living at home again and working full-time for a Christian non-profit, I would've thrown a brick at you then kindly requested you get out of my presence. So who knows? God is loving and faithful. He always has been, He is now, and He will continue to be. And in my uncertainty over the future, that's all I can cling to. And that's more than enough.
