{my graphics are free goodies for you}
In a few days the ball will drop, glittering in Times Square. The crowd will cheer, the confetti will fly and we will wave 2016 good-bye. We’ll toast or dance or kiss. Maybe we’ll sleep through it all and bring in the new year with the smallest fluttering of eyelids. Then we will all begin brand new at the breakfast table, opening that day like the first page in a journal.
We always talk a lot about the year ahead. Resolutions. Goals. Plans. All of that is well and good, I suppose, but maybe we’re waving the year out the back door before we’ve received all we can from it. What can it tell us? What are the parting gifts it wants to place into our hands?
We’ve lived with it for three hundred and sixty-five days now. It knows us well and it has stories to tell, wisdom to pass along, lessons tucked into the pockets of its coat. So before we declare this will be the year we climb Mt. Everest, learn to train wild lions and eat nothing but rutabaga, let’s pause.
10 Questions to Reflect on the Year {click here to download the free print}
What went well this year?
What did not go well?
What do I want to do the same next year?
What do I want to do differently?
When did I feel most in my “sweet spot”?
When did I feel the most exhausted and drained?
What did I say “yes” to that I wish I had said “no” to?
What did I say “no” to that I wish I had said “yes” to?
What helped me stay close to God this year?
What did He teach me that I want to live out next year?
These questions can be done at your own pace. Some folks like to do them quickly and write down the first thing that comes to mind. Others like to go back to them over several days. I personally prefer to do them at a coffee shop with help from an almond milk latte.
Completing this list is a celebration too: We have made it through another year. We have learned. We have grown. We have become. We are wiser and stronger and braver. This is worth noting, worth noticing.
Let’s not send this year slinking away, already overlooked and forgotten. Let’s invite it to the party. Let it clink a glass and throw confetti and give it a kiss on the cheek at midnight.
Then we’ll be ready to turn toward 2017 and welcome it in with joy and grace, love and courage. We’ll only have it for a little while too. And, like all the years before, it will have so much to give us.
XOXO
Holley Gerth
– Looking for a study to do in 2017? The You’re Already Amazing LifeGrowth Guide will help you embrace who you are and become all God created you to be this year.
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Welcome to the Coffee for Your Heart weekly link-up! You’re an encourager so I’m asking you to pour out a little love with your words every Wednesday {link-up goes live at 5:30am CST}. Simply write an encouraging blog post and then share it here. Don’t have a blog? You can still write an encouraging comment. If you’re reading this by email, go to holleygerth.com to see all the fun and join in too.
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I’m having Coffee For Your Heart with my friend Holley Gerth
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