New Year’s Eve in and of itself has never been my favorite.  There’s all this build up and then the countdown and then it’s the new year!!  And then we go home and go to bed.  Blah.

But I realized that I’ve become cynical about it so I’m choosing to look at it differently this year.  It’s not that the celebration is about that moment – as fun as it may be – but it’s about how when the clock strikes midnight and the calendar flips to the next year that everything is new!!  So many times I think of how His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23) and if I’ve had a rough day or am just doing all I can to make it to the next day, this verse gives me reassurance that I get to try again!  If God’s mercies are new every morning, then they’re definitely new when the calendar flips to a new year!

It’s about getting another chance, trying new things, setting new goals and being excited about what the future holds.  Sure, we could do this any old day of the year and it would still mean the same thing, but having the calendar change years gives me that extra push that I need, and I can’t wait!

So, happy 2014, friends!  Enjoy friends and family this evening, be safe, smile and laugh a lot and give lots of hugs (because who doesn’t love hugs??)!  I’m finishing up a couple of projects and then officially taking the rest of the year off ;-)