Life Changing New Years

You'lll hear more about this tomorrow in church, I hope, but I'd like for you all to have a chance to read it. I have something on my heart that I feel compelled to share with you. I know what’s in my heart but I honestly have no idea how to put it into words. I feel light, and weightless, as if a huge burden has been lifted from my life. To better explain what I’m trying to say, let me tell you about my life changing New Years. Before the teen New Years Eve lock-in, I came across an article in my magazine for Christian girls. It showed me a completely new and different way to approach the New Year. At one point it says, “I’m all about thinking ahead and planning for the future, but the Bible tells me specifically not to bank on the future. I can try to trap time in a silver watch or measure it on a calendar, but I can’t stop it from moving. I can’t control it or hold onto it or bank up extra minutes to keep. I’m just told to do something important with today. Instead of making another resolution that I would, in all likelihood, forget by Jan. 4, I approached the new year with a different attitude.” The rest of this article basically talks about the prophet Isaiah during a time of turmoil and grief. In the same year that Isaiah was faced with the death of his king and friend, Uzziah, he saw the Lord seated on a throne. When the Lord asked, “Whom shall I send? And whom will go for us?”, Isaiah didn’t let the chaos, the unknown, or the unfamiliarity hold him back any longer. He says, “Here I am. Send me.” With one whispered prayer he dedicated every day he had left to the service of his God. This is what I found myself struggling with before the lock-in. I certainly had the chaos, stress, uncertainty, overwhelmed, fearful and weak feeling down to a tee, but giving it all completely over to God…well, that was a different matter. I’m not sure why it was so hard for me; I guess I felt like I was beyond saving. Anyway, I thought the article was worth sharing even though I was still wrestling with parts of it. So, I found myself reading it to the youth group during our New Years devotional. I was so nervous, but I felt compelled to share it with them. After I was done reading, I found myself slowly begin to forget about the parts I’d been struggling with, all importance lost in the excitement of the night. However, Thursday evening my brother just “happened” to be flipping through TV channels and came across a Christian radio station. It was playing a song that I’d heard thousands of times before, but I had never really paid much attention to the words. I heard the words this time and they hit me hard, penetrating right into my soul. These are the words that I heard:

Sometimes your calling comes in dream
Sometimes it comes in the Spirit's breeze,
You reach for the deepest part of me,
And call out for the things of eternity.
But I'm a man, of dust and stains,You move in me, so I can say,

CHORUS:Here I am, Lord, send me,
All of my life, I make an offering,
Here I am, Lord, send me,
Somehow my story, Is part of your plan,
Here I am

When setbacks and failures, and upset plans,
Test my faith and leave me with empty hands,
Are you not the closest when it's hardest to stand?
I know that you will finish what you began.
These broken parts you will redeem,Become the song, that I can sing

Here I am, Lord, send me,
All of my life, I make an offering,
Here I am, Lord, send me,
Somehow my story, Is part of your plan,
Here I am

Overwhelmed by the thought of my weakness,
And the fear that I'll fail you in the end,
In this mess, I'm just one of the pieces,
I can't put this together but you can.

Here I am, Lord, send me,
I want to live my life as an offering
Here I am, Lord, send me,
Somehow my story, Is part of your plan,
Here I am

Here I am, all my life an offering to you, to you
Somehow my story, Is part of your plan,
Here I am

God has an amazing way of communicating what he wants his children to know. I live and breathe music, singing wherever I go. So, when I’m told something really amazing I’m like, “Wow, that was cool.”, but when I hear something through a song it becomes really powerful. When I heard this song I completely lost it. These were the very words my heart was trembling. All of a sudden a brick wall, I hadn’t even realized I’d been building, inside of me snapped and, through a tear stained face, I quite literally started throwing all my burdens and all my brokenness at the feet of my Father. Somehow I felt him embrace me and I felt whole. (Something I haven’t felt in a long time.) I knew without a doubt that I was going to be ok, because my Heavenly Father was not going to let go. Then, I too dedicated every second of every hour of every day I have left to the service of my God. I whispered the same words Isaiah said, “Here I am. Send me”, because the days I live and each breath I take have absolutely no meaning if they don’t belong to my Abba. I share this with you, so that you might hold me accountable to my promise to our God. I’m weak and I’m scared. I stumble a lot and too often in the past have I become discouraged and all too quickly given up. I’m still bound to fall and will fail at times to uphold my promise, but through your prayers may I find the strength to get up and keep going through any and every situation.

Love you all,
Hannah