I really don’t like it when I let my blog sit for long periods of time without writing an entry, but honestly it was too much effort for many months. I’ve been dealing with near constant Fibro flare-ups since the middle of the summer, and because of that I got very depressed. While the symptoms I deal with when depressed are pretty much the same, I don’t have chronic depression – the kind that can be helped with medication. (Trust me – I’ve tried different medications when this has happened before and it just makes it worse.) When I get depressed it’s situational – there is always a particular reason for it, so resolve the issue and the depression goes away. I finally snapped out of the worst of it around late November but there has been some mild, lingering malaise. I’m starting to feel better though. I’m on day 6 of a 30-day cleanse to rid my body of toxins, and I feel like my whole body is slowly waking up from a deep sleep. It’s a kind of a wild feeling so I’m really looking forward to how I’ll feel on day 30.

January 2018. I always find January a little exciting to be honest. There’s a whole new year stretched out in front of me with limitless possibilities. It’s like opening a brand-new notebook filled with blank pages yet to be written on. Is there anything more exciting?

God has given me a word for the year since 2011. It’s my “theme” for the year; it’s always a word that encapsulates the lessons God winds up working on with me that year.

2011 was my year of grace.

2012 was my year of hope.

2013 was my year of love.

2014 was my year of trust.

2015 was my year of faith.

2016 was my year of surrender.

2017 was my year to learn to follow (God) in a deeper way.

2018 is my year of change.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. –Maya Angelou

This will be uncomfortable for me because I’m not a huge fan of change in general. Some change is definitely good, but it can also leave you feeling unsettled. I like to feel settled, on stable, solid ground…safe. Fortunately God doesn’t change, so I will need to depend on Him more than ever to be my stable, solid ground.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”  –Hebrews 13:8

“For I, the Lord, do not change” –Malachi 3:6

I sat down recently and prayerfully constructed a faith vision of what I want my life to look like, but the fact is that in order to get there a lot of things in my life, ways I’ve been doing things, etc. that haven’t been working need to change.

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. –Lao Tzu

Reexamining my whole life and determining exactly what needs to change to get me where I want to be is a good bit daunting, but I’m always up for a challenge.

How about you?