Monday's Musings: 2014- Disney vs. Texas.

2014: Happy new year everyone!! I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year’s!

Yes, this post will be about New Year things. What can I say, I’m feeling a bit stereotypical today.

For some strange reason, even though I know December is the last month of the year, and December 31^st is the last day… when January 1^st hits, I always am surprised. How can it be a new year already?! How did the time go by so quickly?! How did my weight go up that much in 2 weeks?!

2014. A new year. A new month.  A new day. I cringe at the sheer amount of cliché phrases I just wrote in one line, but still, we all say them and believe them. Those phrases are good, and imply great hope. It is a new year, a new month, a new day, so we can achieve the impossible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Philippians 4:13 was written for January 1^st right?!? (¹³ I can do all this through him who gives me strength.)

And yet for 99.9% of us, the world did not drastically change on January 1^st, 2014 at 12:01am.  I went to bed in my same bed, and I woke up to the same alarm…. The annoyingly loud same alarm… I went to the refrigerator and the same left-overs stared back at me. The scale didn’t magically reset and drop me back to my high school weight. I weighed the same.

A new year comes in which I expect to achieve new goals, new hopes, and new plans. Yet while dreaming of new change, everything around me stays the same. I started thinking about the irony of that truth. Most years, I am one of the 45% of Americans (according to the Chicago Tribune) who set New Year’s goals, and most years, I am also one of the 37% who don’t achieve them. Impressive, right?

But this year, I began to question this conundrum as I began to make my list.

 Why do I give-up? Why am I part of that statistic? Why do I so easily become part of the norm? Why doesn’t God help me more?

And I realized, part of the reason is because I expect God to change my life along with me. Each January 1^st, it’s like I expect to wake up as the Princess in the newest Disney movie, have the voice and hair of an angel, and be able to accomplish my goals as birds, bunnies, and mice, sing and dance around me in my beautiful kingdom.

HA! If only.

So this year, my plan is a little different… No longer will I succumb to the emotional heartbreak of not turning into a Disney Princess on January 1^st and thereby lose the willpower to lose the 10 pounds.

This year, I will face the reality. I am Holly Brown- a resident of Texas, not the magical land in Disney’s books that is far, far away.

This year, I will realize that if there is any hope to accomplishing my goals, I must be what changes. Not my circumstances. Not my paycheck. Not my gym membership.

God is not at fault for my lack of “Disney-perfect”, volumous hair nor is His lack of changing my income, work-load, and city the reason why I won’t become a Dr. Brown this year. The reason is me. I won’t pay that much money on hair product, and I don’t actually have the resolution and grit it would take to pursue a doctorate… at this point in my life.

My life looks the same that it did on December 31^st at 11:59pm, but instead of letting that bring frustration and disappointment as the year goes on, I will let that be a reminder… God gave me this life, this bed, this alarm… this annoyingly loud alarm, this refrigerator, and this body for a reason. He does have a plan and a purpose for my life in 2014 just like He did in 2013. He’s the one who will change my circumstances in the year that they are supposed to change. I’m the one who needs to be open to His plan, His purpose, and His change… or lack thereof, in my life.

So do I still make New Year’s goals? Yep. But with an open heart and mind. Open to God changing my thoughts…my heart.. my actions. Myself.  while I work to achieve the goals I’ve set… and work to accept my circumstances… Texas and all.