Come Thou Fount

For some reason, each new year seems to bring with it anxiety. At midnight we throw confetti, blow horns, give kisses/hugs/high fives, and toast champagne. And then the next morning, I roll out of bed feeling pretty drowsy and am slapped in the face with a new year.

For a moment, I feel like I've been punched in the stomach. The wind has been knocked out of me and I need to quickly pull it together. I hyperventilate for a few minutes as I try to figure out a plan for the coming year of my life: my living situation, my career, my priorities, and how to improve in all aspects of my life.

I finally give myself a pinch and realize that although it is a new year, January 1st is just another day. So I push all of the chaotic planning aside and thank God for this one day. I thank him that I'm alive and breathing (even if my breaths are fast and labored), I thank him for my job (even if it is hard starting back to work after vacation), I thank him for amazing family and friends (even if many of them are far away), and I thank him that I don't have to be in complete control (because everything doesn't revolve around me - thank goodness!). And just thinking about all of this last night led me to be extra thankful for a God who is always there as my most trustworthy and dependable friend, and puts up with all of my self-pity and complaining (New Year's Resolution: less self-pity and complaining?).

So this year I resolve to let go of my urge to constantly plan my life and simply give thanks for each day. (See this quote from Cry, The Beloved Country.)

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

This hymn is a favorite of mine that proclaims that God is the giver of all good things and implores us to willfully give our heart to him.

"Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for they courts above."