Annual Vow Renewal

I find myself in the same cognitive space every year as I contemplate previous months. Did I live well? Were there moments I missed as I tried to escape the “uncomfortable” by choosing to ignore what begged my attention? Did I love well when I chose silence over a word fitly spoken? Or did I speak when silence begged me to take her hand? I see both wisdom and error. Pride fails in success, and humility succeeds in failure. So, I humbly take the baton from 2021 and pass it to 2022.
Every year, I vow the same. And every year it looks a little different.

*******

Hello, 2022.  I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, another child of time.  I’ve met fifty of your siblings and have learned much through the years.  I shall make my vow to you now, since it is early in our season together.

Foremost, I will be deeply obliged and grateful to the One who created both of us.  It is to Him this vow is ultimately professed.  I know not what price the days before me will afford, so I promise not to hold the hands of time so tightly that I grieve the present with my absence as I try clinging to past memories.  Likewise, I will not vex my conscience with vague and uncertain curiosities forthcoming.  Rather, I will endeavor to remain in the moment and wholeheartedly embrace every second before bidding each farewell.  May I strive to attend the now every moment in every day we have together, for there is no part of you that I wish to discount.  Our Creator may hand you, 2022, pain to pass along in order to impart wisdom, or perhaps, He will bring delight through disappointment.  On the other hand, perchance, He would teach a difficult and beautiful lesson through the joy of the unforeseen.  I do not know, nor do I wish to know.

Let us be friends, 2022.  May Time and Grace hold us together as we grow, and may the dawn of each day be the place you and I meet with our Creator to daily calibrate my soul for His plans for us as we walk together.