Happy New Year!

I think it’s easy to be overly positive during this time, causing some of us to feel stagnant with the things we want to accomplish. I’m not sure how your new year began, but mine started back on my favorite place – Tybee Island – but it wasn’t what I was expecting.

It’s been SO foggy; I’ve never seen the island this foggy before. It’s also rained some while we’ve been here. I’ve only been to the beach once during this trip, and we’ll be leaving today already since I have to work on Tuesday.

Part of me was disappointed because I usually always see the island clearly, even if it is cold and rainy. But if you’ve been around me or this blog long enough, you know I see a lesson or a parallel in my life when it comes to these things.

I’ve been gone from this blog for a long time, and I usually end up coming back here eventually. So I’m back today, on the first day of 2023, to say that I honestly felt like I was walking in a foggy state for a good bit of 2022. It’s not that I didn’t have good times, but I felt so much more stress, anxiety, uncertainty. I really was having to walk by faith because I wasn’t sure how things were going to play out in so many situations.

And with this year starting off, walking through the fog, it made me think how honestly, I was afraid of what this new year would bring. The unexpected came and swept the rug right out from under me last year, in a negative way at that, and I was afraid of how that might happen in this new year.

Despite the hardships I faced in this last year though, it brought about blessings I would have never known I needed had those things not occurred. The fog can really teach you things – like how to strengthen your faith to the point where you aren’t afraid to walk even when you don’t even have a blueprint of what things might look like.

And what’s crazy is, there IS a blueprint on how to move forward – the Bible. I remember growing up in school (I went to a Christian school from elementary through my college years), and one thing I remember was them saying that the BIBLE is “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth”. But it really is just basic instructions, PERIOD.

I’m not sure how your new year began. Maybe it was filled with some thoughts of uncertainty like me. But believe that it is possible to have faith that God can do amazing things, even through your doubts.

Even through the fog.

Mishy 🦋