“I’m still not all I should be,

But I am…forgetting the past and looking forward…”

Philippians 3:13-14

Embrace the New Year.

2014.

Let’s take time to remember last year’s achievements and failures…but use those experiences as fodder to look forward to the promise of a new year… a new beginning. Dedicate yourself to do things better…to become a better person.

New Year seems to be the only holiday that forces the question, “what change can be made that might make me a better person?” It is a time for crucial reflection on the state of one’s soul and how to be strengthened for the relentless march through a life of meaning.

Many people make resolutions. Really, if done sincerely, the process is a reflective time to measure and verbalize a potent set of possibilities.

Resolutions imply that you can impact results…that you are not a victim owned by luck…but that you are an individual who can make choices to change and better your life.

The New Year calls up the opportunity to change the date of the calendar…to embrace a spirit demanding you not live frozen in the right-time-thinking, waiting for an opportunity to fall in your lap.

It is a time to be inspired, to focus, to make commitments and plan the actions for a more fruitful year ahead. To recognize that, “time is like a flowing river, no water passes beneath your feet twice.” A time to make preparations to prove your worth to the world.

As we celebrate and plan the beginning of another stage, we can be engaged to focus on the very real need we all have to press on, to focus on forgiving the failures of the past, to focus on the hopes and dreams that God’s puts in the heart.

“For I know the plans

I have for you…

To prosper you and not to harm you.

To give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11

The New Year can be a new beginning. A concentration on life’s demand—every present needs a purpose and every future needs a hope. A New Year can be a catalyst opening us to a mysterious dawn of that purpose and that hope.

I would like to echo a wish to you from author Neil Gaiman,

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”

“Start by doing what’s necessary;

Then do what’s possible;

Suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

St. Francis of Assisi