I Hope

First blog of the New Year! The blog to begin all the other blogs for the year 2013, it should be witty and smart, it should encourage and uplift….it should, right? I feel that is a lot of pressure to put on myself. To create a blog to begin all other blogs so instead I will say what I said on my very first blog to begin this year new and fresh. 

I am a prisoner of Hope.

(Also I decided to add a lot of random holiday pictures :) )

I have had the last ten days and driving 4000 miles to think about our life, where we are and what we are doing, where we are heading in 2013 and the best I can come up with is that this year I hope God shows us more. I hope that some of my questions get answered. I have hope that I will move further into what I am called to do and be a better mother, wife, friend, writer and pastor. Isn’t that what we all want for 2013?

I am left to wonder are my goals generic goals? Then I remember the big goals are there, deep down on the inside the big goals are the ones that I am to afraid to say out loud for fear that this will be another year that they don’t happen. Am I alone in this?

Sure each year I want to get out of debt, lose more weight and eat healthier but I think those will be goals I am always working towards. What about the big things in my heart, those dreams set deep down by the hand of my creator, doing the things I was created to do and fulfilling the purpose that God has put me on the earth to do. Those are the things on my mind this New Year.

The start of a new year has a way of making us re evaluate what is important. I had the opportunity to spend the holidays with family in Macon, Dixon, and Beatrice, Nebraska and I can say one thing for sure, we are incredibly blessed in the relationship department. I hope that this next year only increases the relationships we already have but also that we would find new relationships, the kinds that benefit everyone involved.

My hope for this year is that I will spend less time looking at my phone and texting people and spend more time looking into the eyes of friends and taking the time to talk to new friends as well as old.

I hope that I can spend more time with my kids and that the time I spend with them is quality time. I want to be able to offer them good advice and encourage them to be amazing people. I hope I am able to let myself off the hook when it comes to parenting and enjoy my beautiful children.

If we lose hope in the New Year, if we lose sight of goals and dreams what do we become? If we stop striving to be better people and build our relationships we stop moving forward. Last year I stood still a little to long. I stopped moving forward just a little and stopped pushing myself to grow. My hope is that this year is better than last.

After all without hope we are wondering without a purpose. Hope anchors our soul to Christ, it keeps us pointed in the right direction. Hope in Christ is a compass for our lives. The important thing to remember is to keep our anchor at home base, no matter where we go or what we do this year if our anchor is at home base with Christ we are headed in the right direction.

Hebrews 6:19 (MSG)
18-20 We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up his permanent post as high priest for us, in the order of Melchizedek.

So this year 2013 I hope, do you?