I've diagnosed myself with claustrophobia.

I've also loosely diagnosed myself with agoraphobia, fear of open spaces.

I have a fear of having no escape, being trapped like a caged bird.  Oddly though, the thought of my cage door being wide open providing me freedom scares me too.  Who knows what's "out there".  When I think about such things my imagination runs wild.

This is a New Year post.  Wait for it....

While we were all at the table eating the other day, Jason asks the year-end question.  What have you guys resolved to do next year?  What a big question. That's an open space kind of question. There are hundreds of things I'm resolved to do; hundreds of things I am resolved NOT to do.  In spite of my resolutions, I'm pretty sure I will still be drinking more than a healthy share of Dr. Peppers come 2014.  Sadly, I also know that I'll lose it with my kids and Jason despite my annual ambition to be a person of gentleness and self-control.

No, thinking about resolutions and knowing with certainty that I will fail is futile.

Twelve months of being resolved to do anything is intimidating.

2013-What will I do with this open space?

I don't know what is out there.

And then again, I do know what's out there.

This might make you think I'm a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of girl; one who lives for the moment.  That's not true either.  I have stood in the candy bar aisle frozen in indecision.  Should I have a Reeses or a Watchamacallit?  I often think that my decision to let one of the kids spend the night with a friend can alter the course of the earth.  What if something bad happens.  I live in terror in my closed spaces.  Will forgetting to hug Hallie this morning be followed by a day of her feeling alone and unloved?  In twenty years from now, will she think I was an absent mom?  It's as if every small decision made, holds failure or success, life and death significance.

I think too hard already.  I don't need to make resolutions.

In fact, I'm resolving not to make them.

I'm also determined to lighten up when it comes to decision-making and its effects.

In 2013  I don't want to be that bird in a cage, being suffocated by the imagined weight of my small decisions.  And I don't want to be the bird flying free, faced with the great unknown, and known future.

I want to recognize my place in the palm of the one who holds time and space.  I want to be with Him in the here and now, and the beyond.  I want to be close enough that I can hear him whispering words of grace and assurance in my bad decisions.  I want to be close enough that twelve months of open space don't seem dangerous; close enough that I am being......

 recreated by His resolve .

He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. Psalm 90:14

It's He who is faithful.

What about you?  -Have a resolution?