Did you know Elmo was a teacher?

Goodbye 2008, hello 2009. Did you know they added an entire second to the year 2008? Something about the spin of the earth being off and spinning a bit faster and adding that whole second would reset things. Weird. Anyway, just wanted to say a quick Happy New Years to everyone.

You know, when I was a kid and teenager, I would participate whole heartedly in the traditions of New Years. You know them, the eating black eyed peas for good luck, making resolutions, staying up till midnight watching the ball drop and Dick Clark do his whole spiel, and imagining kissing my love under mistletoe at precisely midnight (it was having the love part that was always missing).

It wasn't until Darin started to question those things in a joking kind of way that I realized something. Why do we do those things? OK, so it's just a fun thing staying up late with friends just fellowshiping, and the kissing your love part (now that I have a permanent one ;-) ). But the resolutions is what really doesn't make sense (and the black eyed peas thing, but I won't get into that one).

First off, how many of us have ever kept a single resolution? OK, maybe the small ones like going to visit something. But I'm talking about the big ones that are common on people's lists. I'm going to...start working out...start being nicer to people...start reading the Bible...stop biting my nails...and the biggest one of all; LOSE WEIGHT! In all my years of writing a little list of my top 5 resolutions, I can't remember ever even making it past January on them. I made them, was serious about it for a week or so, and then gradually began to forget about them, especially as the school routine got underway again. Who was I kidding? What was the point?

Secondly, why is it that we have become so used to the routine of New Years that we feel like we have to wait for January 1st to make a goal for ourselves? If I think about it, I'm constantly making goals for myself. Little things and big things like making a commitment to have a clean house and dinner in preparation for my husband when he comes home so he doesn't have to focus on anything but relaxing and spending time with his family....focusing on being a patient mom as we enter into the defiant stage of life....having all laundry done, folded, and put away as it comes (still working on that one!)...focusing on making sure my priorities are always in this order; God, husband, children (as hard as that is at times). Need I keep going? During the year, as something comes up, I take a challenge and make a goal for myself. Sometimes no one but me knows about my goal, other times people are aware of it.

Besides, aren't most goals that we set the type of goals that are forever? If you make a goal to lose weight, you can't just meet it and then you're done. It's a lifetime battle.

I decided to take a long bath while Zoe was napping yesterday and caught myself staring at this little Elmo bath toy that she got for Christmas. He's plastic and has dirt smudges all over his body. When you put him in warm water and "scrub him with a brush", the spots disappear. But as soon as you take him out and let him sit for a while in cold air or put him under cold water, the spots come back again. Staring at that plastic red toy, I realized that the disappearing and reappearing dirt was the story of our lives. Only the warm water is the warm embrace and grace of our Father. Day in and day out, we have times when we succeed and times when we fail. It's just a part of life. Each time we fail, those dirt smudges cover our bodily existence. The we come and submerge ourselves in the grace and forgiveness of our Savior and they do what??...disappear again. So with that, making a single or a few resolutions on that one day of the year just doesn't make much sense. We're already doing that year round, we just make it more of an ordeal on that one day. And when we succeed in our goals, it's not really us that succeeded. There's this verse that keeps popping up in a book that I'm reading by Karen Kingsbury. The verse says, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness." Wow if that doesn't knock me off my high horse and back to reality.

So my new years resolution: I have just one. It's this: Not to make any new years resolutions and to make goals as I see fit throughout the year 2009 all the while relying on God's power to replace my weakness.

Leave it to my husband and a plastic Elmo toy to teach me a life lesson. Happy New Year!