Breakthrough: A New Year’s Eve and Blogiversary Post
Every year I put together a list of resolutions. New Year’s resolutions are a long-standing tradition for me. Some people would say that it does not make sense to do New Year’s resolutions or that it is not a practical or efficient way to make changes in your life. If you have a goal, vision, dream, plan, or routine that you want to start then you should begin those things when the original inclination comes to you. No time like the present after all!!! To that, I would probably agree the majority of the time. It is not really practical or efficient to wait for one single, solitary day in a 365 day a year calendar to put into place particular changes in your life. I would also go so far to say that it really would not be a very smart or wise decision either. There is too much of life and too much time that passes to be so foolish as to save those life changes to begin on one day in the year. However, I do not think that most people ACTUALLY do that. I think people, as a generally rule, do not wait to make all changes until New Year’s. So that is why I kind of dismiss that mentality against New Year’s resolutions. For me, New Year’s resolutions are really not a new list of resolutions at all. The list is the ongoing inventory of my ambitions, improvements, alterations, etc. that I have already been working on and toward. There are some items that I will put off purposefully and restart for the New Year just because I am reminded by the glimmer of the New Year approaching that I have been neglectful or just plain procrastinating on certain things. Most of the items on my resolutions list though are just continuations and improvements upon what I have already been doing.
One great example, for me personally, of something that I set out to do and actually did after I put it on my New Year’s resolutions list is (drum roll please) … THE BLOG!!! One of my top New Year’s resolution accomplishments ever I must say. Two years ago today, I launched A Word of Worth and the first blog post therein. New Year’s Eve will always be the anniversary for the blog (the blogiversary for those of you who missed last year’s post where I inducted this made up the term). New Year’s Eve was always one of those days near and dear to my heart because I like the natural reset that New Year’s lovingly forces on all of us. Now though, it holds such a greater significance. The other big New Year’s resolution for me was the year I decided to start my weight loss journey for real. When the immediate threat of obesity over took me it was on New Year’s Day when I was nineteen. There have been other smaller resolutions that have come to pass because I zeroed in and focused after I put them on the resolutions list. Mind you I was working on the blog WELL before New Year’s Eve two years ago, but I launched it purposefully on New Year’s Eve for symbolic and personal choice. As for the weight loss, that was nineteen years of choices, decisions, and habits that cultivated for me to get to my breaking point. It just happened to be on New Year’s Day when I stepped on that scale and knew I never wanted to see that number again. Seventeen years later I am still working on this resolution, it is not one that will ever end. Yes, I lost the majority of the weight within the first few years and have kept off over 100 pounds in that time frame. Yet, it is a lifestyle choice every day – all day. Even though I achieved that resolution, it took more than one year and it will continue to go on for as long as I live.
Well that was a lot of backstory. I am sure you are ready for me to get to the point already…so I will, I will – calm down people. Just reminiscing over here on New Year’s Eve, give a girl a break. Anyway – my whole point was that I think resolutions can be really helpful. I do New Year’s resolutions every year and sometimes I will also have a word or phrase that I take into the New Year for whatever I feel God is laying on my heart to focus on. Kind of a Sesame Street type of situation, “This year is brought to you by the word [insert word of the year here].” This year my word is breakthrough. 2019 is brought to you by the word breakthrough (via the Holy Spirit putting that on my heart). In addition to resolutions, I also have been doing a dream board/vision board (whatever you want to call it) the last few years. This year my board is going to have the word breakthrough at the center. So why breakthrough?
The last few years I have not really gone out on New Year’s Eve or if I have it has been earlier in the evening so that I am home by around 11pm or so. The reason for doing this is so that I can be home before midnight to have some time to spend reading my Bible and in prayer, which sounds super spiritual, but it is definitely not. Plus, I also prefer to be home prior to the epic amount of drunk driving that happens on NYE, especially after midnight (please be safe out there people and call an Uber, let these drivers get their coins tonight). Keep in mind that I usually have had a couple (if not more than a couple) bubbly beverages throughout the course of the evening myself. So my time with the Lord is a little more on the raw side than perhaps it is at other times. I am not condoning drinking alcohol while reading your Bible and praying, but remember who you are dealing with right now. I am just telling you what happens on New Year’s Eve. Over here I am messy and honest, so feel free to judge if you must. There has been a lot of change and transformation in my life in the last few years. It has been a painful and long process (not to mention all the years before that too). Most of it has been really good…in the long run, but in the short run it has been difficult, hard, and frankly a little soul crushing at times. Light shines through the darkness though. It has not all been challenging, some of it has been really great too! I am so thankful for those times of relief and beyond thankful for the times of mercy that have been given to me when I deserved much worse than what was getting. I am waiting on the Lord for much right now. Trusting and believing that He will give me the things that I have been waiting and praying on for such a long time. God hears all prayers, I definitely believe that and I also believe He addresses them. He may not always answer our prayers the way we want, but He addresses them. I do not believe our prayers are ever ignored.
2019 is breakthrough. Breakthrough on areas of my life that I have been working, praying, and waiting on for years. The vision for my life at this point and time is very clear and apparent to me. I know not everyone feels that way in their lives right now. Honestly, I have not always been at the place where I am right now regarding the vision for my life. Do not be discouraged if you do not know what direction your life is going in right now. It will come. Seek what God is desiring of you and you will find it (sooner or later, you will find it). Right now, I am at a place where even though I have no idea what is going to happen, my vision is very clear. The dream and the plans all make sense, even though I do not know what that necessarily entails. There will be a breakthrough in so many areas of waiting this year. 2020 is perfect vision, so in 2019 the vision has to come to fruition!!! That may sound corny to some of you, but I am a fan of symbolism (most writers are, gives us way more to write about). Not to say that everything will be wrapped up in a neat little bow and there will be no problems or issues. I honestly do not even wish that for my life because…well, that is not what life is about and it would be so boring if it were. Faith is built through waiting and trusting, otherwise we would not need faith. I have faith that the vision that God has given me for my life, in so many different areas, will have a breakthrough this year. It is not something I am speaking into existence because I am not God, I cannot do that. It is; however, something that I am believing He is doing.
This New Year’s Eve when I am praying for breakthrough in my life, I am going to be praying for you. Praying for whatever breakthrough you are waiting on from God. You may need a breakthrough on what your vision even is for your life and that is ok. It takes a long time for that to be revealed sometimes. Or maybe you had a vision of what your life would be, but it now it is looking like it may be something else entirely. I do not know what you are waiting on, what you are praying for, or what your vision is, but I do know that I will be praying for you and your breakthrough in 2019. Even though breakthrough is the word I have chosen this year, I think it is something we all need when we are working toward something. You need a breakthrough to help you keep going. Persistence and patience are so important and so necessary. Trust me when I say I understand about persistence and patience. I, understand. God has developed more persistence and patience in me than I thought was actually possible. He has strengthened me so much and I have learned that I have so much further to go. I believe that He will work in you for whatever areas that you need to grow and mature even more as you move to breakthrough. I am believing in breakthrough for you (and for me). Come back to the blog through the year and see how the breakthroughs are happening in my life and you can reflect back on yours as well. By the time we get to the blogiversary for 2020, the vision will have come to fruition. Happy New Year’s my friends, may this year blow your mind!!!
Scripture:
“So I say to you, keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” Luke 11:9-10 (HCSB)
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23 (NET)
“God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
to the woman who diligently seeks.
It’s a good thing to quietly hope,
quietly hope for help from God.
It’s a good thing when you’re young
to stick it out through the hard times.” Lamentations 3:25-27 (MSG)