So we’re three Monday’s into the New Year and maybe we’re just starting to realize that a New Year and a few resolutions jotted into a fresh planner doesn’t automatically result in a new you.
A new me.

  <img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55c38a57e4b00989028332c9/1548165838945-P8ZE9GH50T9ST8IAQAN5/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kNiEM88mrzHRsd1mQ3bxVct7gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fDoOvxcdMmMKkDsyUqMSsMWxHk725yiiHCCLfrh8O1z4YTzHvnKhyp6Da-NYroOW3ZGjoBKy3azqku80C789l0s0XaMNjCqAzRibjnE_wBlkZ2axuMlPfqFLWy-3Tjp4nKScCHg1XF4aLsQJlo6oYbA/IMG_1785.JPG?format=original" alt=""/>

Maybe you started this year full of hopes and dreams and prayers that this year would be different. Prayers that a change in the calendar would bring that change into your life you’ve been waiting for. That a shift in the date would bring a shift in the winds of life, a shift in the temperature of your soul.

How many of us have started this new year wanting nothing more than to make a clean break with 2018 and step into 2019 fresh and full and vibrant and new?

But maybe, as the weeks of this year have begun ticking past and a steadily increasing pace, you’re finding the fresh and full and vibrant and new of a new year escaping you. You want a fresh start and a clean break, but you can’t seem to get there.

You want to leave 2018 in the dust, but it is the dust and the dust is in your hair and your clothes and probably your mouth too, because dust tends to just get everywhere and hang on.

I feel you.
And it’s okay.

Because we can’t always walk into fresh and free as easily as turning a page on our calendar. The past clings to us and all the new and different we can muster can't completely shake off the dust of past mistakes, past hurts, past regrets, past pain, past loss, past heartache, past decisions, past moments that hang on as memories, whether we invite them or not.

Maybe today already, just three short weeks into this fresh start, you’re feeling the pain of the past clouding your fresh start.

This year, like most every new year, I’m tempted to think that this is the year. New year, new season, new me.

But I also know the truth.
There is no new me without a dying of me.

Let me say that again. Differently.

There is no new me in the new year without me dying to myself in the new year.

Dying to old habits.
Dying to old thought patterns.
Dying to old fears and insecurities.
Dying to my selfishness and self-absorbed tendencies.
Dying to a purpose of living for me so that I can come alive to my God-given purpose.

And Ann Voskamp says it best…

“There is no growth without change, no change without surrender, no surrender without wound—no abundance without breaking. Wounds are what break open the soul to plant the seeds of a deeper growth.”
The Broken Way: A Daring Path into the Abundant Life

And a new you in the new year might not sound so wonderful when you stop to take a hard look at what it takes to make you new.

It took a Savior, leaving heaven’s perfection to wrap himself in earth’s fragility.

It took a God-man stepping into our wrong and shame and bearing it all on His perfect shoulders.

It took Jesus, the flawless sacrifice, allowing His body to be broken so that our brokenness might be healed.

And not just healed, but repurposed for glory. His glory.

This new you might sound hard and ugly and painful. But it is worth it.

This brokenness, this dying to self, is nothing to fear. See we don’t become new and whole and healed by ignoring the past, the pain, the struggle. We don’t become new by doing a hard reset on everything we don’t like about our lives with the flip of a calendar page.

We become new by allowing the brokenness to come and taking the brokenness to the Healer.

We become new by dying to ourselves, our rights, our opinions, our privileges, our desires, so that in our dying we can be made new.

If you are plunging forward into this new year just hoping against hope
begging God for a fresh start
for a new beginning
for a chance to leave the pain of the past in the year that’s gone
or maybe wondering how to leave the dust and pain of the past behind when it is clinging so tightly to every broken piece of you
remember that all you need to bring into this new year is your brokenness.

Be brave enough to bring your brokenness into 2019 and take it to God who is the Great Healer.

There is healing in the brokenness.

There is growth.

There is change and abundance.

There is a new you.

But it is not found by ignoring the past.

It’s found by digging into it with the One who is in the business of redeeming broken pasts. The One Who is in the business of taking death and turning it into life. It’s found by allowing yourself to be more fully broken, so that all the bits of you that need to be left behind can die, and so that God can pull beauty from the ashes, refashioning the broken bits of you and me into beauty and glory and…new.

{If you have more questions for me on this topic or are curious about this God Who restores and redeems brokenness, feel free to email me by clicking the mail icon in my blog header. I’m praying that you can, through your brokenness and God’s help, become the new you that God desires to form you into, in this new year.}

Happy New Year