Here’s to You, 2016

I’ve been thinking a bit about the past year, not pinning anything down, but allowing the thoughts to swirl through the back parts of my brain where I dream and intuit and change.

Last year didn’t go as I planned it. I was going to have Turtle Heart with a publisher this year, but I’m still working on more revisions, still looking for that publisher. I had other goals and desires at the beginning of 2015 which never happened, and events which happened that I never expected.

I’m learning not to make predictions and not to put a timeline on long-term goals. It is enough to live from day to day with the grace God gives you and to reach for dreams one rainbow at a time–but always, always keeping your feet firmly on the ground, where God has designed them to walk.

I heard of a man once, and I can’t give any documentation, because I don’t remember his name or where I heard it, but I heard of a man who survived concentration camp. He said it was the optimists that died. The ones who said, “By December we’ll be out,” and then, “By springtime.” And December and springtime rolled around and they were not out, and then they died.

The ones who said, “Someday we will be out,” but did not expect it to be soon, did not expect it next month or next year–only sometime–these were the ones who lived. They held hope far in front of them and stepped through existence one day at a time.

So here’s to you, 2016. I won’t set any hard and fast goals–besides that of spending more quality time with God–won’t corral you or document you or predict you: I will only live you.