Slowly but certainly
The once new is growing old
Smarting to pass away
It was only yesterday
We welcomed it as new
It seems like yesterday
When today was everything.
Slowly but certainly
The once far is almost here
Waxing to replace today
It was only yesterday
Tomorrow seemed so far away
It seems like yesterday
When today was a dream come true.
Slowly but certainly
Life rolls along
Sometimes good, sometimes sad
But on and on it rolls along
And whatever is today
Will roll by, forgotten
In that which is to come.
The …ember months are here again. What does that tell us? The New Year we celebrated the other day is drawing to closure. The new is turning old and it is time to reevaluate if we haven’t done so yet before the year runs out on us. Some of us set out goals for the New Year, if you haven’t checked yet, now may be the time to look back and see how far you have come from when that plan was drawn.
If we don’t pause to evaluate, we miss a lot. If we don’t take the time to see what was done right and where we missed it, we may not even realize that we have veered off from the path we should travel and we run the risk of missing the lessons on how to right the wrongs. Plans are good starting points but they don’t fulfill themselves. Great plans don’t always have great endings. It takes commitment and discipline to stay on the track of the dream even when things don’t go as planned.
What was your goal for this year? To acquire new skill, improve your competency, to lose weight, to buy a house, relocate, retire? I was chatting with a brother and he said, “I am tired. I’ve been on this forever. Everyone I started this with has either been reassigned, resigned, retired, transferred, or fired, and some have died. Eight years later, here I still am.” I stood there laughing so hard. Not because his situation is funny or the way he was saying it. It was due to the fact that he was echoing my very words not long ago.
I could laugh because he wasn’t in a bad place needing to be rescued. Sometime, no matter how wonderful and relevant whatever it is we are pursuing is, sameness tires and the least we can do if we don’t yet have the change we desire is to depressurize. The gentleman was just venting, which we all need every once in a while. So yes, if you have been romancing the sameness since this year, go ahead and vent but don’t give up. Like he did, let the pressure out, then get back on and keep giving it all it takes until the appointed change comes.
It is easy to get choked by tight schedules and forget the world is larger than what we are currently faced with. It is easy to get consumed by our issues and we forget that life is more than what each day takes and brings. Whatever you are pursuing, learn to pause and reevaluate to see what can be changed to achieve the desired result. We may not be able to hit the marks we expect but we can learn and change what we are doing for better results. We may not be able to change our circumstances, we may not be able to change the world but we can learn to change the way we do what we do. We can strive to be better at what we do. At the end of the day, we can only do what we can and when we have, we can rest in trust irrespective of what happens, knowing that God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above and beyond all we can ever imagine or ask.
Don’t let the end of the year catch you surprised because slowly and certainly, it is drawing closer. Take time for pause; look back and savor the good, learn from the sad, take the wisdom thereof and keep moving. Take the time to check and crosscheck to see what and where you can do better while awaiting that which is to come. Blessings on the rest of the year.
Glory!