As I write this it’s the very beginning of the last day of 2013.
Tomorrow is 2014. Remember when it was the 90’s and any year in the 21st century seemed futuristic? Well, it’s here folks.
You aren’t getting any younger. Time flies. Life passes you before your eyes.
These are all truths. But don’t they leave you feeling empty? Rather than leaving room for promises, they provide for betrayal of our youth, fear that our best adventures are behind us, and that we will never reach our goals.
Life is full of tragedy, in so many ways. Death. Illness. Broken relationships. I guarantee that almost everyone reading this can relate to everything I listed. And I know you can add to the list.
Makes you realize we aren’t so different after all, don’t you agree?
Race, culture, religion, time, sex. Distance, involvement, community, interests. All of these things separate us. But the truth is, when we take a moment to be vulnerable, we’ll see that our hearts are quite alike. Yes, one might be stronger, when the other is breaking. But this proves faith and hope and value. Because the strong heart can promise the weak heart of love and future and strength and grace. And when the strong heart is torn apart by unrequited love, and unwanted drama, and drastic change, then the once weak heart grows entirely five sizes, and relays faith, hope, and love.
Grace and mercy. No two better words can give us wisdom and direction for 2014.
Direction and understanding and love are three things I constantly pray for. But I am convinced that when I decide to actively, consciously, and intentionally give all my love to others, acting graciously and handing out mercy, even and especially when undeserved, that life will be full. And joyful. And peaceful. Because I will have given my heart to the most important of things on this earth – souls.
2014, may you be a year of interaction, and friendship, and romance, and wild adventures to be found, even just steps outside of our current landing place. May you not be defined by place, but by courage and willingness to be vulnerable so that you blossom more than ever imagined. May you treat us with grace and mercy, so that we may be graceful and merciful to others. And may you fill our hearts with all these promises so that we are consumed by love, not afraid of the old or the new, but growing out of both.
Cheers. Ring out the old by celebrating how it has changed you for the better. And ring in the new by flourishing where you are.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousands years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man of free.
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ to be.
Lord Alfred Tennyson
(images via De Alma e Coração)
roam&wander 