All Things New

I'm not a big resolution girl.  I've kicked around this "one word" for the year idea that is recently so popular but never really had the desire to jump on. However, the last few days and weeks one word has been kind of hounding me. I am surrounded by it or the need for it. That word is "new." The first verse  memorized for Beth Moore's Siesta Scripture Memory Team this year was Revelation 21:5 "And the one who was sitting on the throne said, 'Look I am making all things new..."  I realize the verse is talking about heaven but I think it might also have broader application. Scripture is full of reference to being made new. There are certainly many things that I personally need to have made new or at least improved a lot!  

The day is rapidly drawing near when we will finally move in to our new house. Anyone who knows me, knows how desperately I have been longing to go home, but it will be a far different home. As a matter of fact, about the only thing familiar will be the piece of land that home sits on. Not any familiar houses nearby (but thankfully many familiar neighbors), no familiar furniture, and very few familiar belongings. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to purchase new stuff. We have rarely ever purchased brand new furnishings.  Most of our things were either repurposed or refinished or something that had been in the family for a long time. This was partly from necessity and partly because I have always loved old things as well as taking something old and making it into something that is uniquely mine.   I truly look forward to our beautiful new home filled with furnishings I could only ever have dreamed of owning, yet part of me will still long for the old, worn out, familiar things that made home home. Our house will be a beautiful, convenient, shiny, new blessing.  I am sure it will fairly quickly, but not altogether painlessly, become home as it fills with the love of family, friends, and new memories. 

Even seeing the beautiful new things that await me in my new home I honestly would not hesitate for one fraction of a second to go back to our pre-tornado home. Maybe it won't always feel that way, but I suppose because of the trauma associated with home and belongings being so dramatically and completely torn away there will always be a little longing.  It has been work...long, hard, often full of tears and heartache

work to rebuild home and I plan to fully embrace and enjoy the beautiful new blessings we are being given. 

I think we (at least I) similarly tend to cling to familiar and comfortable habits and actions whether they are old and need to be replaced or not. I want to be the new person that God wants me to be, becoming increasingly more like Him, but too often I let comfortable and familiar win out over the work required to change for what is better.  

2015 is going to be the year of new, some things my choice, some things not, not only in our home but hopefully so much more. It will undoubtedly continue to involve work...long, hard, sometimes heartbreaking work to trade physical things as well as habits and actions that have become familiar and comfortable for what is new, but I believe God to be faithful to His promise to make all things new.