On new year, new you
It’s the beginning of 2023 and, “New Year, New You!” - am I right? (Read in the most bro voice possible.) I have a love/hate relationship with the entire concept of “new year, new you”, but I’ll save that for another day… Today I want to talk about the gift of transitions of time.
Over the past few years, I’ve been thinking about this concept of the gift of transitions of time. Maybe it’s mostly because I’m a tired mom and many days getting Ellie to bed feels like it takes the energy of an olympic sport and my own bedtime feels more rewarding than accepting a gold medal on the podium. But I think most people can relate in one way or another, in this weary world of ours.
When I was decorating Ellie’s room before she was born, I ordered a print from a small hand-lettering business I follow on Instagram. The woman who owns it had asked for recommendations of phrases or verses to use in her art, and I submitted the paraphrase of the verses in Lamentations 3:22-23: “His mercies are new every morning.” She created the piece and I obviously had to buy it. But the reason I recommended it and then purchased it was that somehow I knew in advance I would need that reminder when I was deep in the throes of early motherhood. So it came in a beautiful package, I framed it, and it became a focal point to Ellie’s sweet little newborn bedroom.
His mercies are new every morning. God created time. He created day, and He created night. He created the rotation of the Earth around the Sun and the tidal waves and the seasons. And I believe He did it out of His great love, grace, and mercy.
Can you imagine a life where there was no day and night? And I don’t just mean whether there is a sun in the sky. I mean what if there was nothing to indicate it was time for us to rest. No predetermined time to sleep. To slow down. To stop. What if we were responsible for deciding when it was time to do those things? I think we all know that the world would be a shit show. And I mean moreso than it already is today…
In today’s society, we don’t know how to stop. We don’t know how to slow down. It’s all about productivity. It’s all about more, more, more! Without the sun and moon telling us it is time to pause, I think some of us would keep going until our bodies gave out on us. In fact, some of us do.
So back to God. The more I think about it, the more I appreciate the fact that God chose to create a separation between the day and the night. He created different seasons. He decided the structure of our year in that it takes (roughly) 365 days for the Earth to rotate around the Sun. And I think a huge part of the blessing isn’t in the physical separation of these things, but in the mental separation of them.
Some days are just a shit show. You know the ones I’m talking about. You woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Your kid woke up with ANOTHER snotty nose. Then you dropped the glass container of pre-cooked bacon (oh, just a de Friess thing?) on the kitchen floor, shattering the container and more disappointingly, ruining all that bacon. After 20 minutes of yelling at your tot to stay in the living room while you cleaned it up, you have to come up with a new breakfast plan… In “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” fashion it just keeps getting worse and worse until you reach bedtime desperate and pissed off and about to punch your husband in the face if he breathes the wrong way (again, just a de Friess thing?). Maybe your bad days don’t include snotty noses or bacon, but you have your own version and you know what I’m talking about.
And on those days, I thank God that His mercies are new every morning. When I find myself in the midst of an especially tough day, I simply remind myself of that promise. Tomorrow is a new day. And more importantly, there is a God who greets me first thing in the morning with a fresh start. It doesn’t matter what yesterday held. Today is a new day, with new possibilities, new hope. There is forgiveness for yesterday. There is a chance to let go. And a chance to move forward.
I think the concept also applies to a new year. God’s mercies are greeting us anew here, at the beginning of 2023. And while nothing actually changes between Decemeber 31st and January 1st, it’s also a chance for everything to change. Our minds like the idea of a new year, a fresh start, a chance to make a change. They also like the idea of letting go of the weariness of the past. The ending of a year, while in reality an arbitrary ending of something that actually never ends - time - is an opportunity to lay the disappointments, hurts, pains, struggles, etc. of the past down. We can put them to rest and approach the new year with new hope, joy, peace, and grace.
So if you find the idea of a new year and a fresh start helpful, leverage it! Use this time as an opportunity to let go of the past and accept new hope for the future. Accept the gift of God’s mercy anew as you set down a new path this year.
If you’re like me, you love the idea of all of this. But when January 12th rolls around and we still haven’t made any goals or have already failed on the one or two we did actually set, here’s another approach: Treat every day as a fresh start.
This year, I’m doing two things differently. One, I decided to set some goals - something I have shied away from in the past because of overwhelm and a fear of failure. And two, I’m viewing reaching my goals as a process, not a pass/fail. If you set a goal to workout 5 days a week and only go 4 days, technically you failed. And that’s discouraging and most likely going to end in you abandoning your goal altogether. But if you set your goal to be working out 5 days a week by the end of 2023, and view the next 354 days as the path to get you there, perfection is no longer required on the way to achieving your goal. Every time you show up to class is a step in the right direction, rather than 4 days (which is 4 whole days of showing up!) being a failure.
As usual, this blog feels a bit all over the place, so allow me to summarize. God is gracious and merciful in that He created changes in time for our physical (when to rest) and mental (when to let go of the past and accept hope for the future) benefits. Our brains love the idea of a fresh start, so use the start of a new year as an opportunity to renew your hope and set a path in a new direction. Remember it is a path, not a one time pass/fail - a process, not a requirement for perfection. And never forget that every single day is a new opportunity for change and for better.
His mercies are new every morning.
