My One Word New Year's FOCUS

Welcome 2017!

This is the first year in a long time, we actually watched you enter, and saw your counterpart walk out the door.

There was no big celebration.

No fireworks.

No confetti.

No ball dropping.

No balloons. 

It was a quiet and reverential moment. 

Sacred, in fact.

Then I went to sleep.

I make no resolutions.

I do, however, establish a focus for the new year.

It tends to be in the form of one-word goals.

That seems easier to manage.

One year it was the word "in"...which really turned into "identity"...

Another year it was "joy."

Last year it was "church."

This year I've picked a rather odd concept: "aging."

It hit me on December 25th, my half-birthday.

Boom.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I went from 30 years of age to 63.5.

I had a hard time wrapping my mind around it.

And, somehow, my mind refused to accept it.

Age had snuck up on me and I seemed oblivious to it.

What dawned on me is that I'm really in the Third Act of this story of mine called LIFE!

How I deduced that doesn't matter.

What does matter is that I want to do this thing called "aging" well.

There's no dress rehearsal for it.

Because it's a once-and-for-all-go-at-it, I want to do it right.

With grace.

With hope.

Without that ugly thing called FEAR.

There's truth to this....

There's not much on the market that gives Christian-followers-of-Jesus good information.

I've seen a few more secular materials, but not a ton.

So...this is my new year FOCUS.

In a way, I want to blaze a trail for those who will follow. 

(That may just only be my children, but, hey...that's OK!)

So, this year my word is "Ziqna" - it just sounds better in the Hebrew transliteration.

If you want to join me on this year's journey - you are welcome!

I'd love to learn from you, too, no matter how old you are.

We are all aging.

It's a natural part of life.

How we age MATTERS...no matter what the number is.

And...here's our starting point. 

It's a prayer from King David.

I'm making it mine this year.

"O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age (Ziqna) and gray hairs (Seba), O God, do not forsake me; until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come..."

Psalm 71:17-18