old things are passed away

i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twentysix and thirtysix
even thirtysix but
i am running into a new  year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me

  

--lucille clifton, from Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980

My one goal as I look back over the last year is to let go of  failures and mistakes, release my grip on regrets and instead embrace lessons learned. 

I want to, as Paul so eloquently put it in Philippians 3,

"focus on this one thing: forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
 -Philippians 3:13-14

Happy New Year friends, can't wait to see what God has planned for 2009!

His Grace and Peace for you in abundance this year,

♥ Melissa~

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"We are careful not to judge people by what they seem to be, though we once judged Christ in that way.  Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new. God has done it all! He sent Christ to make peace between Himself and us, and He has given us the work of making peace between Himself and others."
-1 Corinthians 5:15-18