Renewal

This year more than usual, I am loving the renewal of the New Year. There is something so refreshing about a fresh start. The ritual of the New Year, trite as it might be at times, encourages us to take stock - reflecting on the year that has been and dreaming for the year to come. Who doesn't love a good excuse to set a "reset" button once in a while?

In this area of the world, 2010 was a truly incredible year - and equally overwhelming to match the incredible. The adjustment to life as parents, the move, the renovation, new endeavors in work...we finally feel like we're touching down after a tornado swept through our lives. Don't get me wrong - we feel immensely and indescribably blessed by all that 2010 brought, but we're admittedly a wee bit fried. And for a routine-aholic like myself, craving some stability and just a tiny bit of sameness in 2011. If I had three words to describe my intention and desire for the coming year, they would be ground, connect and stabilize. Change is amazing, but it's also exhausting. Thus the excitement over what is to come in the next 12 months.

I was thinking about this in church yesterday, when I listened to a great sermon on the meaning of the Holy Sacrament of Communion. (Check it out here - It's Not Your Story) Like any good Lutheran, I loooove Communion. I grew up practicing Communion weekly (my father was very adamant about this!), and admittedly, it still doesn't always feel like a "real" church service to me without celebrating this Sacrament. I can still hear the echo of the blessing following that last table of receivers: your sins are forgiven, and your life is renewed...

Early on, I understood the power of what Communion symbolizes - the power of the Cross, and thus of Grace. Ah, Grace. Making beauty out of ugly things. I remember being as young as a fifth grader, and praying after receiving Communion - thanking God for forgiving me for getting so angry at my brother earlier that week, and asking please please God to help me not want to beat him up in the week to come (love you, Mikah). Even then, in my own fifth grade way, I grasped the power of the clean slate - and of the inherent renewal and opportunity for growth it brought to my life on a weekly basis.

So, I realized, Communion is like the New Year - all of the time. It's the symbol that helps us to remember that because of Grace, we have a constant reset button on our lives. And on our mistakes, and shortcomings, and struggles. These days my post-communion prayers are different - with less focus on my specific actions and more on the shortcomings of my character and the broken nature of my heart and how both of those inherently, inevitably ripple out to my actions - but the message is still clear. Because of Grace, each moment is like a reset New Year. Filled with possibility, with hope, and with immeasurable reasons to be grateful.

And to that, I say, Amen.