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How to have a truly happy new year.

For the first time in years, I don’t remember my New Year’s resolution from January. Usually, I write it down in my journal or on a note I stick to my mirror. There’s been many of those dog-eared sticky notes from years past. The year of contentment. Speaking life. We passed pancakes across the breakfast table on January 1st this year. “What do you want from 2018?” I can’t remember my answer. I know what I didn’t want though. I didn’t want to walk into her office and share the parts of my life I’m inclined to hide. I didn’t want to Facetime her the day after she delivered her baby that never breathed. I didn’t want to spend four months wondering how I’d walk into her house on Christmas day and see her empty chair. I didn’t want to go on another first date that led nowhere. We sit across from each other in a little coffee shop in Colorado, picking at a charcuterie board. “When I think about all of the things I have left to go through,” her voice cracks....
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Rebirth

When I first climbed into the passenger seat of the shuttle bus, I wondered how I was going to make small talk with my driver for the three hours it took to get to the airport. These are the things introverts ponder.

But, apparently, my driver had plenty of things to talk to me about: the controversy of windmills, farming practices, what I should do after I graduate, how to clean kettles with vinegar, how to clean his amazing thermos with vinegar, and how he makes his smoothies.

Then, he found out I went to Bible College. “I always think it would be a good idea to try to keep one of the Ten Commandments every day,” he said.

I looked at him, “But, none of us can even do that.”

“No,” he said, “that’s why I get so discouraged. It seems so impossible.”

“Yes, it is.”

That is when I should have said, “That is exactly the reason Jesus came.” But, instead, I was thinking about what the lady in the seat behind us was thinking as she listened, so I told my driver to read the book of John to get some answers.

When I get to my friend’s little white house in the middle of nowhere, the Rocky Mountains stretched out wide to the west, I realize I sometimes think the same as my driver. I try to keep a bunch of commandments and forget to love God.

I snap a picture in my mind of my friend and her husband leaning over the crib of their new baby, in awe of how God weaves a human in the womb. They’re not worried about counting the laws they've kept for the day. They are simply living the Christian life: loving each other and loving God.

In awe of how God reforms us.

Is it too simple to grasp?


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