Welcome to the new year everyone! Did you have a good time with family, friends and food? I hope so.
My New Year’s Eve plans were cancelled at the last minute and I had to find an alternative quickly. Somehow this event comes with so many expectations: the perfect location, the perfect food, the perfect conversations – the last night of the year has to be the best party ever.
The more I thought about it, the more stressed out I felt about it all. Why do we make such a big fuss about things sometimes?
We work and prepare and keep ourselves busy.
We worry what other people will think about our homes, clothes, friendships, life plans and decisions.
We try so hard to follow all the rules to please God and be good Christians. We bury ourselves in arguments and theologies, just so we know it all and deal with it all.
This Christmas was full of people. A blogger friend from the US and my little brother from South Africa came to visit me and we spent lots of nights talking.
About the joys and pain of life.
About what it means to deconstruct your faith and rediscover old truths.
About the simplicity of it all when we watch out for it.
We laughed and we cried together and I realized: this is what life and faith are about. Relationships. Simple. Complex. Challenging. Beautiful. Life-giving.
So if I have to say anything about this new year ahead of us: Let’s keep it simple.
Let’s be okay to not be perfect all the time.
Let’s leave the mess for a while and focus on the people around us instead.
Let’s never grow tired of sharing our time, our hearts, our lives.
Let’s continue to look out for God in the midst of all of this, right here in the mundane.
I ended up celebrating New Year’s Eve with a family I didn’t know that well yet and their two kids. A very small group of people, Raclette, stories, and watching the fireworks over the city from the balcony.
And it was perfect.
Writing for Five Minute Friday today. One prompt, five minutes to write and an awesome community of writers and cheerleaders. Why don’t you join us this year?
If you’re German-speaking and looking for a way to discover God in your mundane narratives, now might be a good time to start reading my book “Fliege ins Leben, lande bei Gott”. I would love to see you on this journey!
thisiskatha.com 
Thanks for sharing this post! Regards, Alex (https://dailyps.com)
Lovely Katha. What a wonderful way to spend the New Year. When I was younger New Year’s Eve was all about work or celebrating (I worked in a nightclub for many years and it was a very buys time for us). It is nice now to just enjoy the present and the next. 🙂
Visiting from FMF #82.
Happy New Year!
Oh, that sounds like a stressful way to spend New Year’s! Hope you had a good start this year, Kelly!
Totally agree – go where God leads us – to family, to writing, to friends. Wherever He leads we go
Blessings
Janis
#54
Thanks, Janis!
My perfect NYE was spent alone at home watching the ball drop on tv. Relationships are indeed the stuff of life. Your post reminds me of Shauna Niquests book “Present over Perfect!”
This sounds very cozy! I have thought about this phrase as well, just started reading “Bread and Wine” by Shauna.
I have no New Year’s Eve expectations ;). I go to bed about ten. We did have a rousing game of Settlers of Catan before hand, though :). Simplifying my life has meant no longer caring what others think about me. If they want to judge me because I don’t wear makeup or dress a certain way, that’s their burden, not mine! May God be with you as you seek to simplify and hone in on only what matters to him!
That is quite a good attitude towards life! Thanks, Anita!
Indeed. And travel teaches you the same. I wrote an article on similar lines 🙂
Travel is the best tool to stay open to the world and the great people out there. We should do it more often.