New Year

New Year's is one of my favorite holidays.  Unlike birthdays, during which everyone jokingly asks you if you feel any different or older and you never do, New Year's legitimately does feel different (at least to me).  The start of a new year promises new hope and new beginnings- a chance to leave behind the bad habits and misfortunes of the previous year and to start over.  The tunnel that you were in on December 31st somehow seems a little less dark on January 1.  Perhaps we are all a little blissfully ignorant when beginning a new year, but I prefer that manner of living.  In the words of a Puritan prayer, "I bless thee that Thou hast veiled my eyes to the waters ahead " ("Year's End", Valley of Vision).


A few Fenrick big events from 2010 (in no particular order):
-Bought our first house in Norman, OK (June)
-Celebrated our first year of marriage (July 11)
-Ran my first- and possibly only!- full marathon (February)
-Andrew started seminary classes at Southwestern Baptist (August)
-I started my first "real" job as an autism teacher (August)
-Andrew started a new job at Quibids (September)
-Dear friends got engaged, married, and had babies
-Andrew had a major seizure and trip to the hospital (April)
-Went together on a mission trip to Trujillo, Peru (March)

Andrew made one ambitious New Year's resolution this year:  Run a full marathon.  Since he is the one who originally inspired my love for running and hung with me through all the brutal training of the first half marathon that we ran together, I'd say he is perfectly capable.

I decided to make only 3 resolutions for this year as opposed to my usual lengthy list:

1.  Drink more water.  As one who is prone to kidney stones, I think this is necessary.  I do not enjoy feeling sick to my stomach and having constant back pain simply because I do not make more of an effort to slow down and take a drink.

2.  Eat real food away from my desk every day at lunch.  Oh, and school cafeteria food is not real food.  (As a side note, some of the "healthy choices" we serve to our children at lunch in the public schools are more than mildly concerning.)  I plan to pack my own sack lunch every day with delicious, healthy food and then leave my classroom to take a walk or to eat in a quiet, refreshing place.  I also am not going to feel guilty for taking 30 minute lunches- at least I hope not.

3.  Work to live, don't live to work.  I want to do my job well.  I want to be a great teacher and make a real difference in my students' lives.  However, my health, relationships, and sanity ultimately need to have a higher priority.  I lost myself in work this past semester, and I think that God had to teach me the hard way through health issues and hurt relationships that He does not intend for my life to work that way.  I will continue to work diligently and to have my students' best interest in mind, but not to the detriment of my personal life.  Work is ultimately a means to an end, not an end itself.    

As I was throwing away my 2010 calendar just before the Christmas holidays and replacing it with 2011's calendar, I realized that, for the first time in my life, I was not in the least bit sad.  Normally, the start of a new year leaves me at least slightly wistful in remembering the joys of the previous one.  This year, I was not melancholy at all.  That is not to say that God hasn't been immensely gracious to us in the past year, because He has.  I should also clarify that we have been the recipients of so many undeserved blessings and joys this past year.  I guess the best way to describe my thoughts this time around is that there is real hurt and sorrow in this broken world of ours; we experience much more of that during some years than during others and yet we are never left completely hopeless.  This year was hard.  And yet, God is still good.