A New Year… A Fresh Start

I’m a little late to the blogging game in 2014 with this, my first post of the new year, occurring 18 days in.

So be it.

It’s a new year. In years past, that hasn’t been so significant in our lives. Sure, we’ve made the occasional odd New Year’s Resolution… but for the most part, one year has always just seemed to run into the next.

Not this year.

You see, 2013 was a year Nancy and I would rather forget. Scratch that… a year we’d rather not repeat. We certainly don’t want to FORGET everything we’ve learned in 2013… but we definitely don’t want to repeat the experiences.

I won’t go into detail, as much of it is no one’s business. Suffice it to say it was a hard year.

So maybe that’s why the new year feels quite significant this time around. Like we’ve got an opportunity for a fresh start in many areas of life.

This year, there are new goals. I won’t call them resolutions, but there’s an urgency to live life with purpose this year. Goals. Plans. Hopes.

Moving forward. Not looking back.

Being thankful for God’s grace. Appreciative of the moments He grants us. Hopeful for the future, knowing the past is truly behind us.

Sounds an awful lot like my life verse, the namesake of this site, established over eight years ago.

Philippians 3:12-14, ESV
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

So perhaps that’s why I felt compelled to renovate the site today. A symbolic overhaul, knowing this year brings new hope.

As does EVERY day.

Lamentations 3:22-23
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
     his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
     great is your faithfulness.

Whatever the case, here’s to 2014.