A few days after Christmas, I’m a bit weary and hoping for
fairies to come and help me pack up all this Christmas stuff. I’m amazed at
someone I know who packs it up on Christmas morning. Without fairies. I’m
serious.
My fairies can hold off a few days, though, because as I’ve
written in Christmas seasons before, I’m still holding on for old Christmas on January 6. I’ll gradually slide things away but keep the nativity sets out
until then.
I’d love to tell you that this house was an oasis of calm
before Christmas, but there was much to do and many people in and
out. Even so, it was wonderful. I may not have sat down much then, but these few days between Christmas and New Year’s are always a
time of reflection for me.
I like to SIT and
reflect.
It’s also usually a time to set goals for the year ahead.
My goals are fluid, subject to change, and I try not to let
them hang over me. Even so, with God’s help, goal setting is how I’ve written
almost a million words in the past eight years.
This year, I’m at a crossroads. I strive to be as transparent
as possible when writing this blog, but sometimes struggle with how much to
share. I’ll just say that changing circumstances may affect how much time I
have available for writing. Translation—day job. This has been a possibility for some time. Lots of writers have day jobs, so I know it's doable. I’ll
continue to write, but will have to scale back in some way. Because of this, I’m
sort of stuck with my goal setting.
I’m reading Psalm 65 a few days ago. “You care for the land
and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with
water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench
its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its
crops. You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with
abundance.”
Here at the end of 2014, I’ve been meditating on how God
crowns the year with His abundance—how he might continue to do that here. An element
of that word “crown” in the original language means to surround. I’m thinking
of God surrounding us with his provision.
I’m also reviewing
the supernatural ways God has provided in the past—way beyond our ability to
imagine. As Priscilla Shirer says, “Beyond and beyond.”
But really, his bounty goes far beyond material provision. As
me and my fairies are removing the visible elements of Christmas and move
toward 2015, despite so much uncertainty, I will have a couple of goals, and
that is to stay close to Jesus and discern his mind. And in the same way I
thought of Him surrounding us with His provision, how much better to think of Him
surrounding us with Himself.
If you find yourself in a similar quagmire of circumstances,
wondering about the year ahead, I’m with you. But let’s allow God to surround
us with the real bounty, the gift of Christmas who is Jesus.