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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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People-Pleasing Anonymous

I roll down my window to open the gate into the parking lot underneath the high-rise where I work. My speakers blast country music. I don’t have time to adjust the sound before a stranger walks past my car. My neck feels warm with embarrassment. There goes my professional image.

Hi, my name is Kate, and I’m a people-pleaser.

On Sunday, I listen as he tells us how bitterness is not a weapon we wield, it’s a suicidal poison.
I have a similar strain of the virus. I am well-acquainted with the sin of people-pleasing. It’s an old companion of mine.

And it’s going to kill me.

Starting with that deadly misconstruction that I’m behind the wheel as long as people like me.

It’s black-ice thinking. The way my mind spins out of control as I analyze Their thoughts and make decisions based on Their philosophies. The way I try to position the camera, so They see me in the best light.

By trying to control my appearance, I have put the power in Their hands, signed over control to my thoughts, my words, my actions.

I’ve given Them my artillery, taken off my armour and raised my hands in air.

Strangers of my Soul own me.

I have it backwards like most things.

The Maker of my Soul provides an escape.

That blessed invitation to please a more forgiving Master. To stop living for other people.To wave my flag in surrender to Him. To sign over control to my thoughts, my words, my actions.

To embrace freedom.

 “With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.” Romans 12:1-2



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