2017.

I'll be completely honest:  New Year's is my least favorite holiday.  Gasp, the horrors!  When I was still working on the hospital, I would even volunteer to work New Year's Eve for someone, if they would work my Thanksgiving or Christmas!  What in the world, right?!

I've had great get-togethers on New Year's Eve, counted down, watched the ball drop... it's not a bad way to spend an evening, but while everyone else is looking forward to a New Year, I'm usually hesitant.

*Working on New Years Eve 2012*

I don't know.  I'm usually the "jump-in-head-first-ask-questions-later" kind of girl, so it's interesting to me that I feel this way about the New Year.  And it's not just this year, but every year.  I saw a Facebook post I wrote in 2015 that said something like:

"well 2015 isn't starting off well at all.  It has a lot of catching up to do if it's going to turn out great!"



And I know exactly what that was in reference to.  And it turned out to be all part of God's bigger plan for our lives because I found out I was pregnant with our precious Griffin a month later.  God knew all along what was happening and I just fumbled my way through in trepidation.   2015 was a stellar year, but I wasn't focused on that.  I was focused on all the things that could go wrong.

I was laying in bed last night, cuddling with my baby girl (who likes to remind me quite frequently that she is "NOT a baby, she is a big girl and I am so funny for saying she's my baby because she's most definitely not a baby.") who currently sleeps in our bed with us and thinking about how nervous I am for 2017 and why?  Why am I so concerned?  And I think, in a pre-slumber-ideas-running-through-my-head moment, I realized it's because my life is so good.  



It's just good.  It's beautiful and blessed and this stage of life is just so sweet.  I know it could change at any moment, I've seen it happen to patients, their families, my friends...life is fragile and we live in a fallen world.  At any moment that precious goodness could be stripped from me and that is terrifying.

But I also realized I can't enjoy these moments if I'm trapped in my own paralyzing fear.  It's inevitable that the real world will catch up with me at some point, but worrying about that now only decreases the pleasure I get to experience today.  And I choose joy!  And life!  And family and friends because when it's our turn, I know they will be there.



So, twenty-seventeen, show me what you've got!  I'm ready for ya.