Subconsciously, I was probably hoping the calendar flipping to a new year would somehow alter circumstance in our favor. That life would slow down, or at least we would stop shuffling our weary feet from one crisis to the next. That 2017 would look a little more like thriving and less like the surviving we’d grown accustomed to over the past difficult year.

Alas, we entered the new year with a pervasive, chronic cough, an ear infection that kept the baby (and everyone else) up at night, and more things to accomplish than there were hours in the day in multiple areas of life. And, honestly? We're just tired. Really tired.

While I don’t want to be one of those depressing writers who constantly wallows in the difficulty of life, I do want to be real. I want to paint an accurate picture of reality, with all its warts and hardships, while simultaneously weaving the work of Christ in and through it.

This year I want to trade in the yoke of slavery to circumstance for a perspective that is higher and greater than my own. One guided by His reins.

I want to shed the yoke of “keeping up” and put on a lighter one of grace and realistic expectations.

I want to exchange the yoke of broadness for one of focus--doing well the things that really matter and forgetting the rest.

I want to lay down the burden of distraction and pick up the gift of presence and paying attention..

I want to trade in the lie of comparison and self-doubt and shield myself instead with the truth of identity and purpose in Christ.

In the midst of chaos, which often demolishes my expectations like a wrecking ball, I long to find rest for my soul in His unforced rhythms of grace. Call it an anti-resolution, if you will. Join me?

What are some of your goals, resolutions, or anti-resolutions, as we are well on our way into 2017?