One Resolution

A few months ago I found a notebook while cleaning out a dresser drawer.  Flipping through it I found the highly motivated ramblings of a mother in her late 20s.

This year, it boldly proclaimed, would be the year of all years. Permanent changes for the good!! I will lose weight!! Eat naturally and get a flat belly! I will write more! I will remember birthdays and occasions and keep in touch with friends and family. I will get up earlier, exercise more, drink less, listen more, read a book a week, keep a stricter budget, clip coupons, organize a craft with my kids everyday and keep an up-to-date scrapbook. I will be supermodel, super mom, start a business and get my doctorate! I will finally achieve all I can be!

Ok, I might be paraphrasing... But not much.  And the sad thing is that it really didn't strike me that my resolutions were about to be exactly the same this year. Because this year, see, would be different.  I had a plan and a quippy title for my cover page in my new notebook.  In fact, here is what the first page would’ve looked like:

2014: The Year of AcCOUNTabliity

Counting words, calories and pennies to achieve ultimate personhood.

Goals: To be thinner, with a finished manuscript, and a perfectly balanced budget with no waste. 

Plan of Action: I will keep a daily journal that details our home budget, my calorie intake vs. calorie burned, and my written word count. 

Honestly, that plan would’ve lasted until maybe the 10th... hour of January 1st. 

But regardless of old journals filled with the same goals, regardless of it being doomed to fail,regardless of filling the pages a year from now with the same words and ideas, I was set to try it all again. 

At least I was until something quite extraordinary struck me.  Something that may seem depressing... that was actually incredibly freeing. Kind of like Miranda from Sex & the City learning the phrase, ‘he’s just not that into you.’ 

What struck me was this.  I will never be perfect enough for people I try desperately to please, and in continuing to strive for approval from some, I am taking for granted the love given to me freely by the people who like me just the way I am.

And trust me, I am not writing this as a plea for help or compliments or pity... I write this because I know I'm not alone and If you’re like me, if you’ve spent hours and days and years trying to get that one person or that one group to like you or accept you or look up to you... I hope you join me in my resolution for next year... My only resolution. 

It is incredibly difficult in its simplicity.  You see, it doesn't involve counting anything. It doesn't involve a reward or punishment system.  And it definitely does not involve a pudgy naked picture with a strategically placed laptop with the promise of an end of year skinny naked picture with a strategically placed manuscript... Not that I would ever think to do that.. Not sure where that came from... I think I heard that was my sister's plan... She’s weird.  Ahem.

Anyway my resolution for this year comes from a book by Gregory Boyle.  In his lifelong ministry of showing compassion to those on the outskirts of society, he finds himself in a constant state of telling people that yes they, even they, are loved and accepted by God. 

He writes, “Recognizing that we are wholly acceptable is God’s own truth for us - waiting to be discovered.”  

This year, I have one resolution.  To come closer to believing that I am wholly acceptable by God. I am ok, I am loved and I am accepted. 

I think of how I stop my children from having too much candy because I love them and don’t want them to get sick.  I think of how I enforce as strict as possible bedtime for my kids because I love them and want them to be at their best the next day.  I think of how I encourage exercise and sports and reading and studying and limit screen time and gluttony and sloth because I love them and want them to grow and challenge themselves.  And I think of how I don’t do any of those things for myself.  

Maybe if I stop trying to live up to imaginary standards I think others have for me, and see myself as someone wholly loved and accepted by God, I can learn to love and accept myself, which will result in my taking care of myself... like I do my children. 

Of course it’s all easier said than done. I will have nights when I high five my mirror and mornings where I won’t want to get out of bed.  I will disappoint myself but I might also surprise myself.  But whether forward or backward I am so excited to hold my head up high and attempt to move this year.  Because when you are trying to be what you think others want you to be you can't help but be filled with fear and doubts.

Doubt keeps your eyes down and fear can tie your hands and inside, you are paralyzed.  

I have a sneaking suspicion that if I can achieve this resolution.  To see myself as someone wholly loved and accepted by God, someone worthy of that kind of love, it may put a new light on a reason to take care of myself.  And it just may give me courage to really try a few things I've been talking about for years. 

I've come to terms with the truth that people love me for who I am and those who don't won't if I'm ten pounds lighter or if I have a book on the best seller list.  Internalizing that realization was freeing.  I'm ready to bring my eyes up and untie my own hands.  

Because if God accepts me, who am I to argue?