I have spent some time this year thinking about how I ought to think about it. 

       Yes, you read that right. I came into 2025 with two major setbacks. One was that I didn't get my book published even close to the time frame I wanted to due to Amazon's confusing formatting regulations...still working on that. The other thing was the realisation that due to business, preparations for the wedding, and five different places my money needed to go, I wouldn't be able to make the long awaited trip to Scotland that I had planned and prayed for for so long. At least, not before my upcoming wedding in May.

        Both of these setbacks have been gnawing at me going into this year. An unfortunate collision with another vehicle in which I took the brunt of the damage, a book that will not publish, a steady load of work that never seems to lighten or give way to rest, a future that, though bright and exciting, also promises more struggle and difficulty than I have ever faced(For what good thing comes without struggle and hard work?), and a life that feels stretched thin over a barren surface.

        My  feelings themselves are immaterial in the long run. They come as quickly as they leave and return again, but the entire past three months have left me asking myself, what do I really want out of life? What do I truly desire?

        For maybe the twentieth time in my life I went and stared at the world's offerings again. Perhaps I have it all wrong. Perhaps God is not real, perhaps He does not love me. Perhaps nothing matters in life except to fulfill one's own pleasure and there is nothing better to do than to eat lest one be eaten. Perhaps to love is to be weak, perhaps to die to self is futility, perhaps self-sacrifice is self-suicide, and to feed another is to allow oneself to go hungry.

       I never really believed these things. I have too much personal experience, even at twenty-eight years, to know the cloying, dull, lifelessness that comes with purposeful self-seeking and God-ignoring wanton pleasure. Still, what do I actually want?

       Just before the new year I was staying the weekend with a very good friend of mine in Tennessee. We were able to catch up on life and talk about stories and books which is my happy place, and, generally be in each other's presence. It was a lovely little respite from everything. However, while I was there, I looked around at her cozy little house which she rents with her sister and a childhood friend and wondered, what if I did this instead? 

       What if instead of getting married and having children and keeping my own house like I've always dreamed, what if I found two or three other ladies around my age, rented a nice little house, took the teaching job that a friend of mine offered that I can't take now that I'm marrying and moving, and, generally, just looked after myself? What if I stopped worrying about caring for the people whom God has placed in my life, or having big dreams beyond the four corners of my own establishment? What if I never had to concern myself with other people's drama or stress? What if I never had to claw my way up out of a sticky situation again? What if I could just be comfortable and independent for the rest of my life and go on trips to Europe whenever I wanted?

A little later that following Sunday, while I was sitting in church with John, I had an "aha" moment. Looking at John, I knew then that I really did just want a life with him, no matter what. He makes me better and pushes me beyond where I push myself, besides that fact that when I'm sad and stressed, his is a very strong, comforting shoulder to lean upon.

         A quick disclaimer regarding my friend and her housemates. This is in nowise what they're doing. They are living in the stage of life that God has put them and doing very well at it. However, the issue came if I were to willfully choose something like that for the sake of ease even if God was calling me down another path.

          Still, though, a part of me wondered, whatever was so wrong with wanting to be comfortable?

        Even then I could hear the voices of mentors I've had through the years telling me that I can't grow and be comfortable at the same time. I knew the truth, but sometimes when you're in the midst of the crucible of life and God's gristmill is tightened to a finer setting, what you know doesn't seem to make much sense anymore. Suddenly all you want is a full bank account, a soft bed, and plane tickets to Scotland.

         This realisation didn't make my problems go away or take away the feeling that I was, as Bilbo Baggins surmised, too little butter scraped over too much bread. 

         What finally did it for me was a Facebook post recently by someone saying basically what I had been thinking about, only as a resolution rather than a question. "No more people with drama in my life, no more people who cross my boundaries," she said, "2025 is a year for me to protect my energy and focus on my goals." It's funny how when the same thing comes from oneself it feels reasonable, it's only when you hear it from someone else that suddenly you see it for what it is.

           It didn't sound so good coming from this person, and I realised that that's not what I wanted for my life at all. How can I build up those around me, if I never seek out those who need to be built up? How can I grow if I don't have difficult people to rub away my rough edges. Which of my goals will ultimately matter if they're not others oriented? 

        We live in a world where we are encouraged to take care of ourselves. "Self care" is emblazoned upon the annals of this era's history. "Be yourself," "love yourself," "Take care of yourself first," we are told by people who are terrified that their own identities will be lost in those of others. Everyone wants to be the pilot, no one wants to be the co-pilot. Everyone wants to be the race car driver, no one wants to be the mechanic. Tens of thousands of babies have been slaughtered because women have said, "I am loving me," and "I'm taking care of myself first." 

          Some of you may bring up the point about needing to be in a functioning state so that we can help others. Please don't. We both know that's not what I'm talking about at all. That is not something this culture or this affluent society of ours generally has a problem with. 

         None of us need to be taught how to love ourselves or else the commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself" would have been meaningless. The husband is told to love his wife as he loves his own body, "For," Paul says, "no one hates his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it..." The implication is clear, if everyone loved his neighbor, his wife, his child, his brother, his mother as he loved himself, crime would roll to a standstill. The tyrants of this world would find their plans unraveling as there would be none to aid them in their tyranny. Life as we know it would be very different indeed. 

         Make no mistake, however, that kind of love requires sacrifice. It requires a giving up of oneself and one's own desires. It requires the finest setting in God's gristmill. Today's culture considers that anathema. Paul thought otherwise. In Philippians, he encourages the church to hold fast to the word of life "so that," he says, "in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain." What he says next, however, reveals his heart and the heart that I would like to have too: "But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all." What? 

        Paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He knew what a drink offering meant. It was a liquid offering that was poured out upon the ground. Usually a mixture of wine and oil or something of that nature. This was something that you would look at as highly valuable to be used in other ways. Unlike the grain offerings or most of the meat sacrifices, the drink offering wasn't eaten by the priests after the sacrifice. It couldn't be. It was poured out, wasted, on the ground.

        Paul's response to this result is astounding: "I rejoice and share my joy with you all." Paul was saying even if I did run in vain and toil in vain, even if I stand before Christ with no reason  to glory, I rejoice. That was because he knew that the work he was doing would not be truly in vain no matter what happened. When we allow ourselves to be wasted for God, we are never wasted.

        I think a lot of people read Paul's writing and think that he must have been a very stern, dour sort of person. I think, instead, that Paul was probably one of the more joyful people you could meet. He had learned the lesson of lasting joy. 

         Joy is not found in the brimming bank accounts, fluffy mattresses and frequent trips to Europe that we all crave so much. It is found in the giving up of all of those things. It is in allowing oneself to be "wasted" in the sacrifice and service of others. It is being poured out as a drink offering to our Maker.

           The funny thing is that it sounds awful, but it's actually not. God delights to work in paradoxes. There is a reason Christ said that "whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but who ever loses His life for my sake, shall find it."

          So, that's my desire and prayer for 2025, that even if I am poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of another's faith, I rejoice and share my joy with all of you. In fact, let me be poured out. I'd rather have that than not be used by God to my utmost. I'd rather struggle and suffer in this life if it means that God used me to make a lasting impact on someone else's life for the better. If even one life is touched for the better because of me, none of my suffering here below will have been in vain. Even if I never see the results I wanted. Even if none of my perceived goals are fulfilled, I would not waste my life in any other means than in God's service.

            This is a bold thing to say, I think. I wonder if I am asking for trouble. Perhaps I am, but it won't come without its reward. Once again, like Paul, "Forgetting what lies behind and reaching upward for what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." That's my new year's resolution for 2025. That's what I truly desire out of life. Who will come along with me?

          ~ Christianna