I want less from 2013

We've had a whirlwind month in the Drew house.  Besides exchanging gifts, we've also swapped all kinds of hideous germs and various illnesses.  Including, a week in and out of the doctor's office with my blood pressure being totally out of whack.  I have to see a cardiologist this Friday....UGH! Hopefully we can get it figured out and under control.  In the meantime, I figured I'd work through some of my thoughts on this topic of the new year. 

For some reason, January 1st never really enthralled me like it seemed to other people.  I have one memory of a New Year's Eve party at a bowling alley with our youth group when I was in high school...the rest are all a blur. This year was the first time in years that Ryan and I even stayed up to watch the ball drop!   I think we're either totally LAME or getting older.  Honestly, I  just want to be home in my pajamas.

These days, I'm happy just to have the kids in bed and everyone safe and warm.  I look around at the world and I feel this reverberating throb of frustration at how trivial most of American life really is. Just watching the various TV programs on New Year's Eve confirmed it.  I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of the get more, have more, do more, be more than everybody else competition that our culture seems to be obsessed with.

So, even though I'm not a huge fan of resolutions...here's mine.  I hope to get less, have less, do less, and be less this year. I don't want to waste another minute in the pursuit of more.  My Jesus was all about emptying himself out...like a drink offering. I want to get less.  I don't HAVE to have an i-phone, or knee high boots, or any of those other silly things I waste time wanting. All that "wanting" effort could be better used being satisfied.  There is nothing more relaxing than the feeling of satisfaction, and with Christ in my life..there is no need to feel anything BUT satisfied.  

I want to have less...as in, go through my house and just purge.  We don't have a lot of material possessions anyway, but if I'm totally honest, there's more than we need. I think about a woman I met in Honduras who had one chair in her home as the only piece of furniture, but brought me in and sat me down in it.  She broke bread and prayed with me...I don't even speak Spanish but it was one of the most influential and moving moments of my life.

I could write a whole post on doing less!   My family is a full time (with overtime) job. My husband is in ministry, we have a child with disabilities, and a toddler.  If you have any one of those things going on in your life right now you can relate to this....if you have all three then call me, I think we could be best friends! haha I want to say, "yes" to everything that the Lord asks me to do and, "no" to literally everything else. Which means I need to spend less time running around like a crazy person, and more time praying throughout my day and seeking God's leading for what's next.

And last... I don't need to be someone great in anyone's eyes, because God only sees Christ in me. I wonder how much American time is wasted thinking about what other people think about us? Well, I hope to contribute a significantly smaller percentage of  that time in 2013.

I would like to leave you (as I understand it) with the original, unabridged version of the serenity prayer.

The original, attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, is:

God, give me grace to accept with serenity

the things that cannot be changed,

Courage to change the things

which should be changed,

and the Wisdom to distinguish

the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,

Enjoying one moment at a time,

Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,

Taking, as Jesus did,

This sinful world as it is,

Not as I would have it,

Trusting that You will make all things right,

If I surrender to Your will,

So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,

And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.