Happy New Year!

At one point during our Tennessee visit last week, Dad grabbed my arms and said “Those are digging arms!” It’s true, I do have digging arms. I’ve dug so many holes around the yard that not only could I not recall them all, I’ve also become a very efficient digger. I know the spots in my yard that can be worked, and those that can’t. To Joe’s chagrin, the first few years in our house I managed to find every buried concrete slab, brick and cobble stone. There has been at least once that he used the truck and a chain to rip a large four foot slab from the ground next to our mailbox that was likely buried by a construction crew not wanting to have to carry it off site. I’ve also dug up and moved more trees that I care to admit. I see plants like living room furniture. You move them around until you have a layout that makes you happy.

It’s a new year and I find myself walking the line between longing for and pursuing change and being grateful for what is on my plate. Discerning what are healthy desires that should be explored and what are longings that have sprouted from ingratitude or misplaced worship is so difficult that I often am too paralyzed to do anything. Sometimes I feel that I’ve been digging at a hole so long that I can’t remember what I was hoping to grow in it to begin with. I admire people who set down the shovel when the hole they have been digging is in the wrong spot. I tend to keep digging until someone takes the shovel from my hand.

To those standing with the shovel in your hand looking ahead at 2015, deciding where to dig — and where to stop digging — I raise a glass to you! Best wishes to you.