25. If the New Year Hasn't Begun the Way You Hoped

How has the new year started for you? Has 2022 been wonderfully exhilarating, as a new year can be? With the hope and promise of a clean slate, a new beginning, a fresh start? Or has 2022 started a little slow for you? Have you experienced illness, or disappointment, or loss in these first few weeks of 2022? I'm sorry if you have. Maybe the new year hasn't begun the way you hoped it would. And you are wondering, is this the way the rest of the year is going to go? Because if it is, I didn't sign up for this.

Well friend, if the new year hasn't begun the way you hoped, this episode is especially for you or for the person in your life who is a bit discouraged so far in 2022. May it bless you and encourage you to know, you're not alone in this. I'm thinking many are right here with you, including me.

Let's find some encouragement together.

"Happy New Year!"

We say these three words and speak this blessing to others each Christmas and New Year's season, don't we? We desire for those in our lives to have a new year that begins happy and healthy and full of hope. And we want that for ourselves, too, don't we? We want a happy new year.

And oftentimes I'm caught up in the notion that something magical is going to happen when we flip the calendar from one year to the next. Something amazing will occur when we ring in a new year. I carry into the new year hope-filled notions, expectations, and maybe even some predictions.

Am I the only one who does this?

Am I the only one who knows this isn't reality, but gets caught up in this kind of thinking with a new year anyway? Thinking everything will be different and better and easier and more perfect when the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve?

But I know better. I know that's not truth. I know that's not how it works. But still, a part of me clings to that illogical hope.

Yet, here we are. In the last week of January and in the fourth week of 2022. How has the new year begun for you, friend? Has it been everything you wanted it to be? Or are you finding this new year hasn't begun the way you hoped it would?

Maybe you've did all the things. You began the year with big plans, fresh hopes, and beautiful dreams. Maybe you chose your word for the year and added a Bible verse to go with it. You prayed, you pondered, and you began the year encouraged.

But this year hasn't begun the way you hoped.

I'm one who understands this well. Because my year hasn't begun the way I hoped, either. And I share why in this episode, complete with the highlights of a trip to the local hospital's Emergency Department on the second day of 2022.

Click on the player (the play button) above to listen to the full episode.

Could it be we've been looking at the wish, "Happy New Year," all wrong? I share why I think we might be.

We still have hope, even when the new year hasn't begun the way we hoped.

Stay encouraged, friend.

Links in this episode:

• Receive access to my email group on my Resources page here
• Episode 16, The Difference a Grateful Heart Makes
• Episode 21, Goodbye to 2021: Time to Reflect, Grow, and Celebrate
• John 16:33 AMPC
• James 1:2-4 VOICE
• Jeremiah 29:11 MSG
• Proverbs 23:18 NIRV
• Encouragement for Real Life Community Facebook group
• Romans 8:28 NIV