New year, new me

Happy 2010 everyone!

If you're reading this, then you know 2009 was pretty much the worst year of my life. Suffice it to say I wasn't terribly sad to see it go. ;)

Now I'm going to be a big ol' blog cliche and talk about New Year's resolutions. But keep reading, cause I've been thinking about this for a couple days and it's pretty good.

This week I was at Winter Xtreme in Gatlinburg, TN (aka My Fave Place) with my church's youth group. The Xtreme conference is a youth group event where thousands of kids come together for Christian concerts and speakers. When I was a youth, Xtreme was what I looked forward to all year long - everyone else went nuts about summer camp, but my thing was Xtreme. The music was what really did it for me; I've always worshiped best through music, so it's just been a perfect fit for me. This year I went as a chaperone (scary, isn't it?) and it was the first time I'd gone in about 3 or 4 years. This year was probably the best conference I've attended, and I've been to, I think, 4 of these things. Like I mentioned, this has been a rough year, and I experienced some of the best worship I've had in months over the past 3 days. It's amazing to be in a room with over 6,000 students and their leaders, every single one of them just rocking out, completely uninhibited, praising God in every way imaginable - you see singing, dancing, jumping, hands lifted, tears falling - and the only word to describe it is beautiful. Most of the concerts - if you follow me on Twitter then you know my feelings for Flyleaf, so I say most - were amazing, and I felt as if each speaker's message had been prepared especially for me. Every one of the four speakers (Tony Nolan, Ergun Caner, Matt Pitt and Johnny Hunt) said something I really needed to hear, and I know that was God working through them. I came home feeling like I'd been dying of thirst and finally given a drink of water.

~My first version of this post was extremely wordy, even for me, so I managed to cut it down a LOT. You are welcome.

So, here's my main point: New Year's resolutions. I have several this year, that I came up with during/as a result of the conference. One is to get closer to God. I seriously slacked off on Bible reading and prayer time last year, so this year I will do better. Another is to live more for others: leave off that pride, that self, and focus on being a servant. I'm going to work at looking past the end of my nose and doing all I can to be what others need me to be instead of focusing on what I think they ought to be for me. I resolve to stop obsessing over things that I can't do anything about and trust God to take care of me - along the same lines, if I can do something about it, I will try to take action. I resolve to be bold and speak up when I feel God moving me to do so. And I resolve to take better care of myself overall, physically, mentally and spiritually. I hope that a year from now I will be a different person, and all the changes will be positive ones, and I will be happier and more content and satisfied with my life.

One more thing - if you're reading this I want you to know that I am thankful for you and I pray that God will bless you beyond your wildest dreams this year. I just know 2010 can be amazing!