Blanks, Scribbles, and Sparkles

I'm staring at a blinking cursor on a white screen, wondering how to best welcome a new year: a year as blank and mysterious as this screen. It's the same kind of staring I will do later today when I stare at the blank page of my journal and will myself to remember to change the last two numbers of the date from 15 to 16 without scribbling out the wrong one to replace it with the right one. Of course the pressure of remembering to give that level of perfection to my journal will probably automatically mean I'll mess it up and scribbling will commence.

I love first days. It's odd to me that I do, because I'm the girl who loves a plan and isn't wild about mystery. But despite that, I love first days. I love thinking ahead to what might be.

This year I have pages of scribbles, and not the kind of scribbles induced by writing the wrong year on a journal page. Intentional scribbles. Scribbles of dreams and hopes and goals. Scribbles of what I hope Ryan and I can accomplish together in our marriage, in our home, in new avenues of ministry. Scribbles for myself - of writing, of making new connections, of fostering friendships I have even now. Scribbles that will hopefully catapult me into making mere ideas come to fruition and scribbles that may never become more than a scrawl on a page. And both are okay.

And over there, just across the room, a sparkle catches my eye. My mantel decorations for the new year are a silver and gold jungle of sparkles. Why is it that we commemorate a new year with all things sparkly? Glitter hats, shiny noisemakers, shimmering disco balls. This is how we choose to bring in the new. And there sits our rendering of a new year - a burlap S sitting in the middle of wild bling. Ordinary tucked into celebration.

This is a new year. The mystery of the blanks, the hope of the scribbles, and the celebration of the sparkles.

Let's do this year. Let's fill it with prayer - not just God bless prayers on the fly, but paused, deep, scary-faith prayers. Let's schedule adventure and happen upon even more that we didn't know to schedule. Let's treasure friendships and capture their beauty because none of us knows how long we'll have each other. Let's celebrate milestones because each is an accomplishment that some never get to know. Let's welcome people into our homes and our lives and let them know they're loved and chosen and treasured. Let's invest - in each other and in ourselves.

2016: welcome. We would love for you to be kind and gracious to us, but mostly we just ask you to be eternally purposeful. Bring your mystery, your hope and your celebration. We'll bring the blanks, the scribbles, and the sparkles.