I had high hopes to write a post on New Year’s Day that would set the direction for the year to come. You could even call it a New Year’s resolution—but I hope you don’t, because resolutions aren’t a point in which I excel.
I could tell you all kinds of hopes and dreams that I have for the year to come and I would tell you that the bar has been set remarkably high. In the past year, I met a guy, fell for the guy, and said yes to the guy. He’s the kind of guy that you say yes to. Yes to coffee, yes to dinner, yes to forever. In that order. I also traveled to places I’d never been, drank too many glasses of wine, bought a home, accepted a job I wasn’t qualified for, spent hours at dinner tables surrounded by my favorite people, and celebrated engagements, weddings, pregnancies, job promotions, and Fridays. And although there has been some unexpectedness and loss and disappointments along the way, it’s been a damn good year.
And I could tell you that this year, I think I might give up gluten forever, and that I’m going to spend more time writing, and that I want to spend my Sundays differently and intentionally, and that I’m going to slow down and lean in. But telling you what I’m going to do or not do, isn’t going to help you with what you’re going to do or not do.
If you’re anything like me, you classify resolutions into one of two categories: success or failure. We leave little room and grace for anything left in the middle. And what I’ve been finding is that most of life happens in the middle. So instead of advocating for resolutions, I’m advocating for intentions. Less goals, less achievement, less check marks. And more radical ways of living and experiencing my way around the world.
Here are the 10 quotes that are laying the foundation to my 2019:
“This is not life or death. Take a breath, take a step back. You can fix it, you can learn from this, and at the very least, you let it go and remember that you tried. Because you tried, and sometimes that’s good enough. You need to let it be good enough.”
“We waste so many days waiting for the weekend. So many nights wanting morning. Our lust for future comfort is the biggest thief of life.” -Joshua Glenn Clark
“Pray the promise, not the problem.”
“You can still pray big when you’re feeling the weight of doubt and fear.”
“You are the gatekeeper of your energy, time, feelings and thoughts. Be equally ruthless and generous.” – Brittin Oakman
“May I never forget. On my best day, I still need God as desperately as I did on my worst day.”
“Any relationship you have that could get ruined by having a conversation about your feelings, standards and expectations wasn’t really stable enough to begin with.”
“Be careful how you make sense of your life. What looks like a disaster may in fact, be grace. What looks like the end may be the beginning. What looks hopeless may be God’s instrument to give you real and lasting hope. Your Father is committed to taking what seems so bad and turning it into something that is very, very good.” -Paul Tripp
“Try to make at least one person happy every day, and then in ten years you may have made three thousand, six hundred and fifty persons happy, or brightened a small town by your contribution to the fund of general enjoyment.” -Sydney Smith
“Keep the honest moments close to your heart. The ones that are the most human. When you laugh until your ribs ache with your friends, when you feel stars exploding inside of you from fall in love, when life breaks you open and those tears of transformation pour like a river from your soul. Life is really quite simple. We get to experience this planet for a brief while. We get to learn how to love ourselves and one another for the strange, messy and magical creatures that we are. What a gift it is to have a human life. If you look a little closer, there is always something to be grateful for. True gratitude isn’t ignoring the darkness. It’s participating with your whole heart in whatever moment life brings. It’s leaning into the unfolding process and having the courage to not need all of the answers.” -Allie Michelle
These words are not concrete, measurable goals or to-do’s that I can check off a list. Instead they pave a way forward to remind myself how I want to live whatever life I have left. To leave people better than I found them. To live less by milestones and more by moments. To show up when I’m called to show up. And to pray big, brave prayers that will require tremendous leaps of faith.