I am listening to a sermon and I am writing this post. This is my attempt to do a yearly reflection, and also talk about my goals and hopes for next year. Can you say multi-tasking?

The sermon is about being thankful. Actually the theme for my church this year is being thankful. I think it is an excellent theme to have for the year as sometimes my life can be full of complaints, and recently, full of pain. So being thankful has been very hard for me, but also very easy. And it is because of my beautiful boy. In 2022, I became a mother to the most perfect boy on earth. He brings me so much joy and my life is so much brighter because he is in it. I can look at him and have many thanks. Thankful for his his little feet, thankful for is beautiful smile, thankful for his messy eating, and thankful for his very existence. But 2022 was a full year without my elder brother. My heart is so broken and I have cried so much this year. I have been filled with so much pain, I have been filled with so much anxiety, I have been crippled with fear. Fear that wakes me up at night, that have prevented me from living my life. I have been in hiding, just afraid. Shaking in my boots. Because death is scary and mysterious and painful.

2022 showed my how joy and pain can be in the same room. How gratitude and disappointment can sit side by side, and their presence be felt so strongly.

It is nearing 2023, and I can say that 2022 was about survining. It was about getting through the days, minute by minute, second by second, it was about placing one foot in front of the other.

2022 brought be closer to my family. The burden that we could no longer carry brought us to our knees and then to each other. I have always envied the people with really close familial relationship but not once did I want to get it in the way I got it. I am grateful for my family.

This past year was a shaky one with the God. I am a woman of faith and this year I was faithless. I felt like God had hidden from me, but it was also a year where I felt deep reliance on God. These days, I feel like I am doing life without Him. I feel a lot of things I know a child of God should not feel.

It is 2 minutes into 2023. And I am crying because all I can think about is I have to live another day without my brother Scott. I am thankful for my other siblings, but I don’t think I know how to live without him yet.

*** O Lord give my joy and rid me of anxiety***

It is 2023. I hear fireworks outside my window, I am praying with my church and I am still crying and writing. I think I need to talk about my hopes for 2023.

When I think about 2023, I think of my son and all the milestones he is going to reach and all I want is to be here to see it and be part of it. I think about life alot and how I want to be here for my child. I don’t want to die and leave him. I know death is out of my hands but I really want to work on things within my control.

• I want to be eat more healthy.
• I want to become a runner. (okay jogger)

The word beautiful kept coming to me as I was thinking of how I wanted this year to look like. I want to cultivate beauty in all aspects of my life. My personality, my view of God, my physical appearance, my environment, and in my interactions and thoughts. For a long time, beauty felt too much like hard work and sometimes I would wonder what I had done to deserve it. But I really want my life to beautiful, no matter what it looks like.

My ins:

• more Jesus
• more praying
• more kindness to self and others

My outs:

• fear
• doubt
• anxiety

I am not sure what this year has in store, but I am feeling hopeful and I am leaning on the Lord with everything. So, I am confident that no matter how this life turns out, I am not alone.

What are some of your New Years resolutions?