Dinner Suggestions Welcome

So, it's been a month since I had anything useful to say.

And, well, you might want to wait until I get to the bottom if this post before you make a call on whether or not I have anything useful to say now, either...

In a world of easy access into what people are thinking, the Internet is full of New Year's Resolution posts and facebook rants.  About a 50/50 love them/hate them mix, but one thing is for sure, no one with Internet access just plain ignores January 1st.

Except apparently me, up until now.

I feel vastly unprepared for reflection.  I am still trying to come to terms with 2012, never mind find a life lesson out of it.  And my world?  My world is already filled with broken resolutions and failed goals.  Unmet plans and incomplete projects.  I love the idea of new beginnings, but I am terribly negligent with the follow through.

I feel like with so many writing 'prompts' for the New Year, so many ideas with lists and goals and your 'word' for the year, or your 'plan' for 2013, it should be easy for me to just think of something to write here for the people who still might care to read.  But instead I've drawn a complete and total blank.

And instead, I stared at my computer until I no longer see the FireFox logo and instead start to see the reflection in the screen.
My reflection.

Am I really almost 32? 
Most importantly,  am I really almost 32 with far, far less of an idea of what I want to do with my life than I had at 18?

I was going to be a career woman.  I was going to change the world.  I was going to finish university and work at a life changing job living in a loft apartment with trendy furniture and a cat.

All of that faded away what seems like a lifetime ago for love, and I would never trade it to go back. 

So knowing I am ok with where I ended up, where does that leave me while the woman reflected in my screen has more lines on her face and grey hairs poking through her at-home-colour hair than I care to admit?

In a post a month or so back, I admitted that I am a runner.  Then this year I registered for a race a month, a half marathon in the spring and the Tough Mudder in the fall.
I run.  It's what I do.

But that doesn't mean that's all I am.  Or even the most important thing I am.

What is the most important thing on this, the first month of 2013? 
On paper, I would say that the most important thing in my life is my faith.
But is that what it looks like from the outside?
What do I even think that should look like?
Because I can say my faith is the foundation of who I am, but if no one can see that already, it means about as much as my talk of budgeting behind my $5 Starbucks.

This past week, a song I heard for the millionth time came on while I was running and I stopped there, in the middle of the sidewalk to hear it out like it was my first time listening, (which is mildly ironic sine I just looked up the song and it written by the Sidewalk Prophets)

The courus sings: "If love is who I am....."

I've thought about that for a long time.

When it comes to my faith, I've been a lot of things.
I've been a struggling skeptic, I've been a new believer.  I've been challenged, I've been confused, and I've questioned.  I've taught, I've led, I've preached and I've counselled.
On the outside, I've been a Church Secretary, a Pastor's Assistant and even the Wife of the Chairman of the Church Board of Elders, for all the fancy titles that mean only a change in how other's see you, not in what is really there.  

But have I been love?

One of my tattoos is of a lace veil on my shoulder that says 'the beauty of grace'.  When I was in Mexico some of the resort employees would call me Grace, since they thought that it was my name.
And in a way, I guess it kinda is.

I am not just called to show grace, my very existence says that I AM grace in action.
I am not just supposed to believe that God's mercies for me are new every morning, I am suppose to live believing His mercy for everyone around me works the same way.

Dispite my cynical judgement, my piercing responses and my angry reactions,it's not just a Sunday School saying.
Every single person I judge every day, there but by the grace of God go I

And because of it all, I am not just to do my best to show love. 
Love is supposed to be who I am.  

Not just at Christmas when we get to feel good delivering Salvation Army hampers or collecting Food Bank donation, but every day, while I'm disciplining my kids, arguing with my husband, fighting with the credit card company or writing this blog.

If love is who I am....

I don't have a list of goals, I don't have a reflection on this past year of change, I don't have a 'word of the year' or a fancy post about what I'm going to do, say, think, change or keep the same this year.

What I do have is frayed nerves, a faltering resolve of what I want in life and a budget I can't seem to balance. I have overly lacking parenting skills, little to no discipline and most of the time, a serious attitude problem.
I have a church that doesn't yet seem like home, a Hope I seem to know about but never rely on, and a faith that these days seems to be buried down where I left my ideals of the strength I would bring with me this year.

 And I have this.

If love is who I am.....

I feel significantly unable to make a single resolution this year.
I can barely make a decision on what's for dinner tonight.

But I can remember this, today.  And maybe tomorrow.

And hopefully, maybe one day, when people wonder who I am, it will be the answer.

If love is who I am....



 then this is where I stand.  At least today.  And maybe by he grace of God, tomorrow, too.