The Year of Being Still

2004 has been a stellar year. Whatever disappointments cropped up were short-lived, for the most part, and do not compare with the satisfaction of meeting the goals I met, or with the sense of personal accomplishment that came from taking the one step I'd previously been scared to make, going to grad school.

Poised on the edge of 2005 (I can see it from here), I am again in the Valley of Decision. It will be a year of facing more things that make me terrified, I'm sure. Discipline has been defined as a long obedience in the same direction, and the Bible says that no discipline is pleasant at the time, but painful, but in the end it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace.

The discipline that I must exercise is that of patience and relinquishing control. I know of no harder place to be (for myself) than in the place of holding my ground. The Bible also says that a patient man is better than one who takes a city, that a person who can master her own anger and arrogance is to be lauded more than a fierce warrior.

Patience is active. It will require significantly more strength and spiritual accuity than I currently posess. It is not a resolution so much as it is a revolution of one. "Lastly, I war with myself the most..."