Reflection on 2012 New Year's Resolutions

New Year's Eve 2011. As I sat alone in my apartment watching movies, trying to stay awake in order to welcome in the New Year (I failed, by the way. Called it a night and went to bed at 11:30. Yeah. I know, pretty sad, right?), I began to think what I should do for my New Year's Resolution. Now, I rarely partake in the tradition, because 1) I always forget what my resolution was by the end of the first week, and 2) due to #1, I generally break the resolution. So, last year, I thought, what will I do? And then, I got a couple of brilliant ideas: stop tweeting, and turn my giant pickle jar into a prayer jar, filled with 365 prayers, one for each day of the 2012 year. The first, was purely for fun; I would do just to see how long I could (seven days, before I caved, by the way). The latter was to challenge me in my relationship with Christ and to get me to start praying again. At last count, there were 54 prayers in the jar, the last one being on July 24th, well over five months ago...





I want to say that I'm disappointed in myself, but in all actuality, I'm not. Because God doesn't care if my prayers are on little slips of paper in a jar, or several pages written out in a letter in a journal, or a conversation in the car on my way to work. A prayer is a prayer. And God knows them all. And He's answered them all. So, yeah, I failed at filling the jar, but God didn't fail in answering a single one of my prayers. Granted, He may still be working on my requests, but I know that He is, and one day, I will know the answers to the prayers left 'unanswered'. But more than that, even though the jar isn't full, this year, God did exactly what I was hoping He would do when I made this resolution: He brought me closer to Him. It's definitely not as close I was three years ago, but by His grace and mercies, I'm ALOT closer than I was a year ago when I made the resolution.