Happy New Year

A strange amount of emphasis is placed on the celebrations before every new year, and almost none on or after New Year's Day itself. I suppose it's about the celebration of hope, saying goodbye to however the last year had fared, and hoping towards a better and brighter year ahead. If that it true, then the New Year itself is barely celebrated since... hope has already come.

Christians live like that. Every day, every year. Well. At least we are supposed to. We await the second coming of Christ, living in the hope of His glorious future and eternity, till he comes or till he calls us home before that day. And so we (should) live with brightness and expectation, in celebration and joy, knowing that Jesus will come again. Fully expecting a better tomorrow, not because of what we are going through right now, but because of God's promises to us.

A hope and a future.

2011 was a long year to me. A year of hellos and goodbyes. Beginnings and endings.

For the first time in my life, I left the comfort and familiarity of Grace Methodist Church. Since then, I've stopped into the building a couple of times (for weddings and whatnot), spent a wonderful 3 days with the church at camp, met up with a number of people on and off. Every time I step through those doors (as I will again later today for Bryan's wedding), it is as if I had never left. I look forward to going back, God willing.

I had my first breakup. The sudden and terrible realization that things were not going to work out sent chills down my spine. And yet I am now so much stronger for the things that have happened. I have to thank Denn for that. A little older, a little wiser now. A little more conscious of who I am and what I can or cannot live with.

I started my new job on 28th March. I remember the date well. I remember the wide-eyed wonder at the world I was entering in to, a world of quick wits and careful words. Sometimes I still wonder if I had jumped the gun and wrongly accepted this offer. Sometimes I'm so sure of His providence in this area. Now, 9 months on, it is as if I've been fully born into this job, so sure of the expectations and requirements, the need to sacrifice time and effort. I'm really still sitting on the fence with it really. I don't know if I really want to commit the next 5 years of my life to this, I don't know if I can really handle the work that has been laid out before me. It's been overly tiring at times and I feel inadequate. I guess and pray that God will let me know soon.

One thing that came with the job is colleagues. I've met some wonderful people, and gotten to know a few of them fairly well. Perhaps it is me, perhaps it is just the people I'm around, but the line between friendship and colleague-ship has rarely been blurred so much. It is... comforting, yet a little too over-engaging at times. I don't want my life to revolve around work, and when you're out with colleague-friends, invariably that is what you talk about. Well. I suppose more things will happen this year.

I started going to Lighthouse Evangelism regularly sometime in May. I suppose there's a blog post on it. Anyway. I've come to accept it as my church for now. Services are okay. I love my cell group though. I can't say I have come to love the people in my cell group; there is a chance that my connection to them will take some time to nurture and grow into something more than just casual friendships, but I do love the things we do and how we go about doing it. For the first time I'm connecting more with a corporate than I am with the individuals. Its something I look forward to this year, more time with them, and watching and living through what God brings us to.

I miss Lavie. So does everyone else in the family (save my dad maybe). Just yesterday, my mum was commenting on liking this stuffed toy my sister got for Christmas. She liked it coz she knew that Lavie would have liked it. Its moments like these really. This quiet morning for example. Were she still around, she would be lounging in the chair I sit in now. I suppose her passing is the one thing I remember most and perhaps instinctively try to forget. Its funny to say this, but most of the year pales in memory to those bittersweet memories of her final days with us. Its only been 3 months, and yet it feels like a lifetime since she left. Dorcas wants to start again, with 2 cats this time. I'm quite keen, but for the fact that we'll be really poor soon, with Dorcas going into full time studies and Janice taking half a year off to do her Masters. Oh, well...

Thinking back now... That was really all my year was about. The smaller, lesser memories have already begun to fall at the wayside. I honestly do not have many hopes and dreams for this year, asides just living it well. It's the last year of my twenties. I read somewhere that things get "locked" into you when you hit your 30s. Characteristics, habits, mindsets. This year, I hope to shake things up in my life. To defeat my own pessimistic expectations as it were. Get fit. Learn something new. Balance work and life. Do something new.

It's the first day of the new year and life should not stay the same, even though the moments are.