I used to view New Year's as a fresh start. A clean state. A blank page. I used to. But I don't anymore. The New Year signifies the need to bust out a new calendar. It means I need to train my brain to write a new number when I jot down the date. It's a reminder, like my birthday, that I'm another year older.

But it's not a new beginning.

Not any more than any other day is.

I'm grateful for the newness in each morning. The fresh mercies that come with the sunrise. The everlasting arms that hug me awake. The clean-slate grace that meets me as I mumble my way out of bed. And the breath of life that's breathed into me. Again.

This December thirty-one, I'm looking back at how far I've come He's brought me. And I'm looking ahead to where He'll take me tomorrow. And the day after that. And the one after that.

I don't do resolutions, but I am doing something new this year. I'm writing an email to my future self which I'll receive on New Year's Eve 2009.

Why don't you do it, too? A year from now you'll be glad you did.

Happy New Year, friends.