New Year's Resolutions?

Last weekend we headed up to Des Moines for time with family over the New Year's holiday. On our way home I asked Alan what this year's resolution would be. Now keep in mind that two years ago it was to work out daily...it lasted one month. Last year's was to start a blog and post daily because that would create a discipline of writing more and reading more...it lasted a couple of months. So what is his resolution this year? "To resolve to not make any new year's resolutions." Well, at least that one he can probably stick with ;)

As for me, my only resolutions are to spend more time in the Word and to be more disciplined in my quite time. How one does that with working two jobs (piano and photography) and being a full-time stay-at-home mommy is still a challenge I have yet to figure out, but at least it is a challenge worth trying for this year as I know it will reap many rewards. My other resolution is to spend more time with Isaac during my day, and save the chores (that I can) and photo editing till the evenings after he's in bed on the nights that Alan works late. I barely touched my computer today and did just that, and had an amazing day with my little man. I am blessed :)

Now back to that first resolution I mentioned: quiet time. I've been struggling, not just with time management, but with the actual "just doing it" part of the whole thing. I think Satan has a way of getting me to purposely find other things to do or to distract me because there are literally days when I go to get my Bible to read, and something enters my path and distracts me.

But tonight, thankfully, nothing hindered my chance to turn on Pandora to my Keith & Kristyn Getty station, open my Bible and my study, read some of the Word and have a chance to reflect on it. And I am so thankful for these precious moments of just me and Him.

I've been journaling my prayers lately, which I find helps me in my prayer time as, again, I get very distracted easily while praying. The last line of my prayer tonight was, "Speak to my soul this year, O Lord, and mold me into Your image." I guess that's really my resolution this year. To be molded and made in His likeness/as He wants me to be as a woman of Christ.

The word mold in that sentence got me to thinking about a potter's hands molding clay. I know, it's so cliche for the whole "He is the potter, we are the clay" verse, but still, there is such depth to that image of a potter's hands. I googled some images out of curiosity, and the main thing that stuck with me as I looked at all of the images is that the potter's hands are dirty. They are cracked. They are dry. They are covered in mud. They are worn. There is clay under the fingernails (eewww!!!). But yet, with such strong hands to manipulate the clay, they are gentle hands so as to not break the clay. The clay, however, in each photo was clean, slick, smooth, refined, and was a beautiful work of art.

Now I've often used the prayer, "Lord, please shape and mold me," but never before this moment have I thought of what process had to go into Him being able to mold me in reference to that verse about the potter's hands. He had to die for me. His hands had to be covered in dirt and mud and blood and tears. His hands felt the nails drive through the skin and His flesh be torn open because of my sin. There was blood under his nails. Sounds like the potter's hands, huh? Just as the potter's hands have to get dirty in order for the potter's project to be complete and beautiful, so did Christ's hands have to be bruised and battered and scarred in order that He could then save me, revive me, refine me, and shape me in His image. The potter cannot make a beautiful project without getting his or her hands dirty and grungy first. The Lord, in order to save His people, had to be willing to send His son for us, and His son had to be willing to die for us...for me.

He is the potter and I am the clay. And I am so thankful that He took the wounds and the dirt and the blood so that He could & can refine my life into something beautiful.