Finding New Hope In A New Year

Just over two weeks in to the New Year and already I feel like life is crazy. I was reminded today that, especially if you aren't actively in the work force, you don't have a break between the old year and the new year. It's often tough to be motivated because most often we don't have a goal that we can look towards. Most vacations at this point have been taken, and now the next thing we have to look forward to, or not so much, is bathing suit season.

I'm trying to challenge myself this year, not by saying I will have done ___ by the end of the year, but by having a word each month that I would focus on. One word that would challenge me to read my bible more for answers and guidance,  a word that will help me be a better wife, mom, and friend.

So this month, my word is grace. I love the word Grace, don't you? It's such a great word because it means so much. In focusing on grace, I not only have to get better at giving grace to others, but also to myself.  I also have to be willing to see and gratefully receive grace from God.

I love Hebrews 4:16 when it says, "Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." A Proverbs 31 ministries devotional put it this way, God gives us "grace to take one more step, to utter one more prayer, to risk rejection one more time. Grace to trust in His promise and to cling to His hand."

I just love that. It reminds me that God's grace allows us to be able to receive mercy in all that we do. We don't have to give up on life just because we have fallen down. Grace gives us chance after chance, and hope after hope. Though some things may always come back as a rejection,  His Grace is still there. He still wants us to know, through all circumstances, that we are still loved.

Nancy Taylor, a lady who came to speak to some ladies at our church said it this way, "Jesus didn't come to just help  you with your life, he came to be IN your life!" That's grace, ultimate grace. No matter what we do, what situations come up, he will be there.  He's not a genie or a magic lamp, he's not a vending machine that you put prayer in and wants come out. Jesus came so that we could have ultimate grace, the undeserved grace of forgiveness, to be able to start each day as a new, clean slate.

So my word for January is Grace. I have a feeling,  with the pending sale of our home, us considering birth control to take a break from infertility,  pressures on Chris at his work, raising an almost three year old, and us stepping up to a leadership position at church,  we will need a lot of grace. I will need a lot of grace, to start every day fresh, new, and encouraged.