[H] Truth Thursdays 21: All Things New

I love the sunrise. Sunrises are magical. I love the way the sunbeams spill over the horizon like the moon did a canonball into the sun so all the light splashed out. Sunrises are hope. The night and its dark shadows have left us and the playful warmth of the daylight has come back. We wait for the sun in the despair of the night. When the sun comes, we look around and realize that nothing has changed and everything has changed. The sunrise doesn't change my surroundings, but illuminates it. The ominous forms in the dark suddenly take shape into recognized objects in the light of day. What once seemed foreboding, now becomes familiar. That is the magic of the sunrise.

2013 has come and gone and yet I am still here. I slept through the new year and when I woke up, I didn't feel any different. The scars and smiles and heartbreak, tears, and laughter won and lost in the year hadn't left me. The marks in my heart stayed the same. Every year I change. Every year brings new lives, growth, vegetation in the forest of my mind. A new year doesn't flatten a forest. Years of germination, growing, blooming, dying, pruning, weeding cannot be undone with the countdown of seconds or a moment.

But a new year can be a sunrise. I can see my life in the light of day. I can be unafraid of the things I am unsure of. I am still the same person in the same place, with the same properties. But I can be full of hope. Nothing has changed. But everything is brighter.

Prompt

-H

[D] Truth Thursdays 21: All Things New

Here we go. I've been avoiding writing a New Years post because I'm not quite sure what to write and in the past, I've just never been a FAN of New Years. I used to think of myself as the Grinch of New Years. I just never understood why it was so important to celebrate. Like, it's a new year and the last number of the date changes. But days change... daily. Time changes constantly. Why not celebrate every New Day? or New Hour? Bored in class one time, a classmate and I used to stare at her watch and greet everyone a "Happy New Minute!" but it got boring after the Fifth minute. Anyway, when my siblings and I grew up and realized that being with each others company at home on special occasions proved to be more of a duty than "fun," I suddenly felt the pressure of making New Years a big deal, even if I didn't know why. I'm blaming it on too much TV/movies. As I do about most of my issues. 

I still don't fully understand the whole idea about this holiday, but let me tell you that last year and the past three years have been insane and I'm quite excited to leave it all behind and start All Things New. This is the first time in three years that everything really does feel new, like I'm starting over. Except I'm not starting over, because starting over kinda sounds like I'm about to do everything all over again. I don't want to do the same things over again. It's like the book metaphor that everyone uses: It's like the past three years was a book that just finished, and now I'm starting a whole new book. A lot of new things started last year, but it really didn't feel like a new book. More like a final chapter to a horribly depressing book. So now, 2014 I'm not starting over, I'm starting. 

One of my favorite movies is Disney's Tangled, I just related so much to Rapunzel. Her song, "When will my life begin?" was my theme song up until last year when I realized that my life is now and it's starting. I need to stop waiting for a Prince Charming, a revelation that I am the lost princess. I spent so much of my life WAITING. Waiting to finish High School, waiting to leave for the States, waiting to get my residency, waiting to go to college, waiting to meet friends, waiting to fit in, SO MUCH WAITING. In all that waiting, I was so afraid to open up because everything felt so temporary and unsure. 

But everything that's temporary and uncertain in my life right now is everything that's making me excited about 2014. For so long I had been waiting to finally just find something permanent and stable so I can settle down and make roots. But now my heart is yearning for adventure and I can't imagine staying in one place for too long. I literally have no idea what this year is going to bring and in the past that would have scared me to death, but now I am ready for anything. I'm ready to go anywhere. This world is so huge and I used to be so angry that I was moved from my corner in South East Asia all the way to the other side, but now all I can see are all the places I skipped on my way here. 

In the past years, I entered every new year as a battle to be won. A battle for joy, for Jesus, for myself, for people. And looking back, that's exactly how it felt. I've been through some crazy battles to get to where I am. Now I'm sure I'm still going to have some few battles this year and for years more to come, but this new year is an adventure to be explored. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN THIS YEAR. But I know I want to travel, I want to see new things, do new things, love new people. 

"I have no idea what my future holds, but I know who holds my future." 

"Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland."  

- Isaiah 43:18-19

- D