Chronicles of 2011 over coffee!
SOFIA DRINKING COFFEE
Have a seat. Have some coffee with me. I gotta tell you something. Can you believe 2011 is gone? What did it look like for you? To me, it was a plethora, a conundrum if you will of successes and failures, triumph and tragedy, disappointments and dances, blessings and loss. It was an overflow of classroom adventures of wrestling minds and explosive attitudes. I won some and I lost some. The battlefield of education, it comes with the territory. My community, the quintessence of spiritual warfare. Fireworks of creativity, gain, innovation, relationships welding, trying to keep the momentum. Tears, laughter, sorrow, joy, peace, powerful, weak, silent. A soup of sentiments pouring over like stew. Are You Aware? The book that was birthed in my heart on the issues of social justice and the Church. Sentences turned into pages, pages turned into chapters. A book was implanted, 2012 I will give birth. Exciting and tumultuous times!
I don't know what the future holds. The hands of the future are not tangible, I can not hold onto them. But here's what I do know. I know God holds the future like a lover would with his love. I wish I can discern every move I need to make, and advise you the moves that you should make, as if our lives were a game of chess, moving each piece in the right direction. I would be dishonest if I said I made the most calculated decisions, and I kept my resolve every time and in every situation in 2011, but I didn't. I lost my resolve, my calm, my peace plenty of times. My trust dissipated with the unknown. I was so close to being a recipient of the next blessing, the next transition, the complete desires of my heart...only to be confronted with sheer providence and a closed steel Hand, and a whisper into the fragility of my soul, "I have something greater, I have a different idea for you." I learned, He taught me how to deal with the wait, the other, not yet, and not now. He taught me how to believe in His best wishes, verses my petitions at large. I've learned the beauty of saying, "It is well with my soul."
Life is a lesson, each moment is a classroom in session. As you were sitting in your chair, book open, pen in hand, what was your assignment, your test? Did you pass, fail, get by with a C? The blessing of learning is the knowledge that it's a process, a journey, a constant stretch of our understanding, a scaffolding on what we already know to then build on that foundation.
Here's what I love about new years....it's an opportunity not to press re-set, but to press play, and what's more, to put up the volume. Turn it up a notch. If you want something you've never received, you have to do things you've never done. We can't grow wiry, and the idea of pressing re-set just doesn't settle with me. Why would you re-set and erase what you've established the year before? Build on that, strengthen that, develop that, water that.
I'm entering 2012 with resolve and fresh perspective. I'm not who I was, and I'm definitely wanting to get closer to who I will be. I'm going to be what I've not yet been, go where I've not gone, press what I have yet to press into. I'm going for it...that next level, deeper realm, more, further inside.
I wish you a wonderful new year full of hopes, dreams wide awake, a drawing closer to your Savior. I clothe you with courage, tenacity, endurance, and potency. Here's to another year full of unknowns, mysteries, surprises, and exhilarating happenings. Hold onto something. I suggest you Hold onto Him, things are about to get really interesting. Paz.