Do you dread or look forward to the annual New Year’s traditions?

On every last-day-of-the-year, we reflect on what was and look forward to the promise of new, but does it really need to be that profound on just that day?

Why isn’t the profound part happening every day?

When we encapsulate years like file folders in a drawer, it causes us to rate highlights and hurts, successes and failures, dreams and dashed dreams. We can’t help but compare and you know what they say about the comparison game.

Instead of allowing an entire year to get away from us before examining ups/downs and in/outs, what if we did that every day?

Every day is the only day that day will ever come. Each morning God’s mercies are new. Each morning, not just once-a-year on New Year’s Day.

We naturally reflect on years gone by, but years are made up of days gone by and I want to be more intentional about my days before they go by.

What if every day we took a quick look at the day before?

What if we examined what we could have done better, whether we finished something we started, whether we were intentional with our time and whether we accomplished what we set out to do (by accomplished, I don’t mean we should tackle huge projects every day, I mean did we make whatever we set out to do count). Did we get adequate rest and recreation? Did we spend time enriching our relationships? Then we can use what we find to make today better.

I wrote a similarly themed post a few years back. You can read it here.

All of our years are filled with successes and failures, smiles and sorrows, lively days and lazy days. We are tempted to rate an entire year as bad because of one bad day, or week, or month. Sometimes it may be many months, due to an illness or loss…

But tucked inside those years with days we wish we could erase, were days of joy and days of love. And would if we could erase those hard days?

Would we?

It makes me think of It’s a Wonderful Life. If you’ve never seen the movie, you need to.

We are so willing to erase those bad days that overshadow the good, but we can’t, they happen. Erasing those days would unintentionally erase those experiences that came afterward, the ones that had a powerful impact on our livesꟷthe outpouring of love, the lessons learned, the way those not-so-good days shook us awake and made us see life differently. The way they helped us not to take all we have for granted.

A year is made up of 365 moving parts. To chunk it all together and rate it as a whole can be disappointing and discouraging. Let each day stand on its own and celebrate those small steps in the right direction we take daily.

So I say let us be intentional about our days so when this last-day-of-the-year comes around again, we can say we have already tied up each passing day with a neat and tidy bow, and no need to feel that overwhelming task of rating an entire year at once. 

Each day we can be creative, productive, selective, decisive.

We can move and be still, connect and reflect, seek quiet and comfort.

Then when the new year comes we don’t have to say “Maybe this will be the year…” or “Glad that year is over” because every moment we are given is a gift whether we see it that way or not.

Instead of saying Happy New Year to you, I will instead say Happy New Day!

Be blessed, my friends. Have a blessed day today and a blessed day tomorrow, knowing you haven’t jumped a fence or crossed over a bridge, but rather walked through from one gift of a day to the next.

Let us put our hope in the Lord and not merely in a new year.

That’s what I’ll be doing.

Joy & Peace to You,

Doris

Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” Lamentations 3:22-24 NKJV