Another Year is Dawning

Congratulations, you’ve made it to 2012. If you are like me, you are probably a few pounds heavier than you were in 2011. I don’t think I have to explain to you why that is, especially if your home was the one to host the last Christmas dinner of the season. You know, the dinner where everyone brings the leftovers from the dinner or party before. It’s the last chance to get rid of all those decadent treats that call to you in the middle of the night.

Another year is dawning, slowly opening up to reveal what it has in store for us. It is a new beginning, a chance at a fresh start to live the life we feel we should be living. The trouble is that unless we have dealt with the stuff in 2011 we will be carrying its baggage with us into 2012.

Although I rarely make a New Years Resolution, I do tend to look over the past year and see the areas in my life that need improving. This is a very frustrating experience because so often I look back and see that I’ve made the same mistakes over and over again. When I could have been reading my bible, I was reading a silly romance novel. When I could have been visiting the lonely, I sat and played a game on my iPad. When I could have been sending out encouraging cards, I was scrapbooking.

I have such great intentions. I start the New Year off vowing that I will do better, but within a month I realize I haven’t done it. I really try not to fall into the same patterns as before but before you know it, I’m doing it again. As much as I make these decisions to change, nothing happens. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. At times I feel as if I am at the end of my rope and feel as if no one can help me. But there is one who can. Thanks be to my God! He sent His Son Jesus Christ to help me and He does. He acted to set things right in my life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

Sound familiar? That was my personal paraphrase of Romans 7:18, 19, 24 & 25.

Paul gets it. In my mind I have all these wonderful plans to spend my days doing the good things that I know I should be doing. Then I wake up in the morning and before I know it, I’m doing everything but.

I am so thankful that Paul doesn’t leave me in the pit of despair. He gives me encouragement, words that will bolster me up, to try again: “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25 NIV)!

Another year is dawning and as much as I want to change for the better, I know that I will probably screw up again. What keeps me going is this:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering and so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1-4 NIV)

Jeanetta van Leeuwen is a member of WSPC who lives in Bracebridge. She loves to scrapbook, journal, and enjoy life with her husband and three children.