So often the end of the year comes and I take stock of all the goals I accomplished or things that happened over the past 12 months.  This usually can go one of two ways: 

1. Feeling like a pretty big badass for making some serious magic happen.  No matter the arena of life, meeting or surpassing a goal definitely boosts my mood and energy.
2. Feeling like an utter failure at all the things I wanted to achieve or work toward that fell helplessly flat.  

Yes, there is a middle ground somewhere in there.  A place where you can celebrate the good and learn from the bad.  It’s a tenuous path to get there though. Things don’t always fall nicely into a balanced look back at our past year.  

Instead, I decided this year I was going to look back at what God did for me.  That feels kind of selfish typing it out, but in many ways, it should. The things that God did for me in 2019 were truly nothing of my own hard work.  They just happened. And I am really grateful. Things like deep our marriage and relationship with our kids, putting some people in our lives who really love us well, orchestrating hard life circumstances in ways we never could have imagined, reminding me of my passion to write, seeing His beauty in nature over and over again and many more.  

“Before they call I will answer;

while they are yet speaking I will hear.” Isaish 65:24 ESV

I want to move into 2020 with that heart of gratitude and with my eyes on the right thing and my heart in the right direction.  This leads to …

I don’t have any goals for 2020.  I used to map them out in a systematic way that showed me what I needed to do each month.  It felt good to cross things off the list and organize everything so much. It worked to an extent, but for the most part, it simply taught me to show up for life day after day after day no matter what.  Maybe I will pick up that practice again. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, for me looking forward, I want to go into 2020 with the right mind and heart and my eyes on the Lord. I want to follow where He leads and see what happens.

This post was written as part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to read the next post in this series “2019.”