Resolutions? Forget About It...

  I can't remember the last time that I made it to midnight on New Year's Eve...willingly, that is.  A couple of years ago our neighbors that live behind us had a spectacular fireworks show well into the wee hours of the new year, so I laid in bed listening for a while and finally Jacob and I got up, raised the blinds in the living room and watched the show.  If you can't beat 'em, join 'em in this case. 
  New Year's Eve/Day is fun, don't get me wrong, but with small ones running around at 7 am the next morning, it's just not worth it to me right now.  Maybe in a few years when my kids learn to sleep in, we'll start staying up, maybe enjoying the evening with friends again. 
  One thing that hasn't changed about New Year's Eve for me for many years, though, is that I don't make resolutions.  I used to...then I'd break them only weeks into the new year and be forced to admit defeat.  And since that does wonders for the self esteem...But my very good, super awesome friend, Jill, and I started sort of a "reverse resolution" thing about 10 years ago. 
  It was the end of a rough and crazy year for both of us and we hung out at her apartment for New Year's Eve.  We decided that, instead of making a list of resolutions for the next year, we'd make a list of everything from the year before that we wanted to forget, to promise not to return to ever again.  And then we burned the list.  Not like in a "we're psycho, crazy, playing with fire" kind of way, just a symbolic "yep, that's done and done" kind of way.
  That year, my list was pretty long.  There were lots of things I wanted to forget and never think about again.  Some years there are more than others.  This year, there was only 1 thing on my list.  I guess, too, I don't really think of it as something I want to forget, but more as something that - through the God's love and strength - I overcame.  I wrote about it last year, but it was my battle with post partum depression.
  I've really thought a lot the past few weeks about what my life was like about this time last year - and about how good, great, awesome, powerful, and completely loving my Heavenly Father is to me.  That He loved me so much that He brought me through that time, surrounded me with more support than I could have ever imagined, and can now use it for His glory. 
  I love that my understanding of James 1:2 - 4, is so much deeper.
   
     "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

  Don't get me wrong, I'm still lacking and I am not complete in so many, many ways - and I'm not all "Yay, I had post partum depression!" - but I am happy about the woman that I am today, because of the trial that God brought me through last year.
  So, I didn't exactly burn the "list" because I was sick in bed with a migraine all day and, well, playing with matches in bed doesn't really seem like the safest thing to do.  And I don't want to completely forget it, because in completely forgetting I would have to completely forget all the love that God poured out on me.  And that is something I never, ever want to forget.
  There are things for this year that I hope to do - like blog more, learn to sew, start running again ("again"...like I've ever done it before.  ha!!).  But, hey, if I do it - great, if not - at least I didn't break a "resolution". :)