How to Start a Brand New Year

As I sat contemplating new goals for 2024, I suddenly became aware of two things. Others around me were blowing past me with all sorts of mind-blowing goals with matching palettes and color schemes to match. Me? I was finding it hard to get started this year. 

Giving up on my calling wasn’t an option, so I allowed myself to ask some very important questions. How do you get moving when you have no energy left? How do you refuel when you feel totally depleted?

Finding the answers to these questions meant spending some time with Hezekiah and God’s people in 2 Chronicles 29. Hezekiah was facing a starting over of his own. The children of Israel had messed up and needed a redo in a major way. Sin had led them far from God and now they found it hard to know where to begin to find their way back. They discovered the best place was simply to go back to the beginning and start again.They went back to the house of the Lord and did a complete overhaul of the temple and rededicated themselves to the service of God. There they found themselves revived and ready to be about the Father’s business once again. 

I followed their example and did a little going back before moving forward too. I decided the best way to move into the New Year was to do what they did. Take inventory, re-evaluate, recoup, and then seek God to start a revival in my own heart. This would prove to be the best plan for starting a new year with expectation and enthusiasm.

This is what I did at the end of 2023…

I took inventory. Some things could stay, but other things had to go. Honestly, I had let a lot of negative thinking into my heart in 2023. Lots of hardships had left me reeling, and I had spent time hiding out this year. I had started to doubt myself because we had faced many hardships as a family. That same spirit that moved Job’s friends to accuse him because he endured hardships of his own and questioned his relationship with God because of them came knocking on the door of my heart this year. I am not proud to admit that I let that into my heart.  This negative thinking was the first thing that had to go. 

I didn’t accomplish as much this year as I had planned, and I let it steal my confidence. All I could do this year was survive. I was busy just trying to continue breathing as I watched others grow, start new endeavors, and celebrate accomplishments.  Instead of celebrating my survival, I let it make me feel inadequate.

I have had to finally swallow my pride and permit myself to accept that my life is different. It is hard walking out a diagnosis of MS with a loved one, and some of it is messy. Accepting and surrendering to new norms isn’t always an easy thing to do.

I am learning that even though other people’s lives appear way more carefree and less painful in my current season, that doesn’t mean God is for them and against me. I am learning to trust God when life is hard and then shine the light on that same path for others to walk through. Maybe that is what I am supposed to learn in my current season. Before leading others well, you have to walk through your own valleys. I know that prayer I prayed years ago, desiring to encourage others. God put it there, heard my heart respond, and is making the way for me to do that through the hard roads He has put me on. 

My word for 2023 was Encourage, and 1 Thessalonians 5:11 quickly became my anthem. It reads, “ Therefore encourage one another ańd build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” 

It anchored me in 2023, especially every time I wanted to quit.  When I doubted myself, there it was. When I felt unworthy, there it was. When I just wanted to try something different because I didn’t feel I was making a difference any longer, there it was. It chased me down every road high and low that I traveled this year, and perhaps that has been my most significant accomplishment of all. 

No matter what the enemy threw at us this year, my feet may have slowed at times, but they kept moving in obedience. Even when everything in me screamed to stop, I didn’t quit. I did continue to encourage others in a tough year.  Sometimes, your most significant accomplishment won’t look like “hers.” 2023 taught me to celebrate them anyway. Of all the things I plan on taking with me into 2024, 1 Thessalonians 5:11 is at the top of my list. 

The hardships we faced in 2023 have also taught me that just because you struggle doesn’t mean you are a failure. When you fall short, mercy is available for you too. And when you try as hard as you can and it doesn’t fix a situation, sometimes you get to lay it down and move on. For a girl who always feels she needs to be doing something, God is teaching me that part of the process is to make time to rest. 

I rededicated. I rededicated some things in my life to The Lord again, including my pen. I went back to the source of my words. They didn’t come from me to begin with. They won’t come from me now. I’m not her. I don’t have her style. I don’t have her gifts. What I have is a heart to honor God and encourage those who struggle in this world. The ones sitting alone, the ones having a hard time seeing the goodness of God in their lives, the ones reeling from a hard assignment, the ones thinking they can’t go one more step. Those are my people. Encouraging and ministering to my people is “my” assignment. That is my “field.” So I rededicated myself to what God has called me to do. 

I recouped. I bought a new Bible to start a brand new year of studying and journaling God’s Word. I dusted off a few books from my shelves and sought out some new ones.  I mean to learn some new things this year. The best place to start is with people who have walked out of their own personal hardships and could teach me a thing or two. I then grabbed some new journals and some highlighters. This girl was now feeling pumped to get started again.  I still don’t have mind-blowing goals with matching palettes and color schemes to match, but I do have a fresh perspective, fresh mercies, grace in abundance, and a brand new word and verse for the year to get me started. And that is more than enough to blaze a trail for Jesus into the new year.

My word for 2024 is Pray, and my verses are found in Ephesians 3:20-21. They read, “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”

The only thing left to do was strap on my boots and get ready to start walking. I would walk into this new year seeking and asking and clothed with the mindset that God is going to do something exceedingly and abundantly for me this year. 

2024, here I come.

How do you prepare for a new year? Do you feel led to a word or verse for 2024? I would love to hear from you.

See you in the field,