Still Making Me Holy

Most of us take a little time this week to reflect on the year whether to watch one of the many retrospectives on the news show or because at the end of the year is a time to look back. For some of this this year has been hard. We have had illness strike that we didn’t want, that has thrown us for a loop from which we will never be quite the same. For some of us this has been a tough year because a person important to us has died. We have moments of sorrow, we sometimes have grief so unbearable it is hard to get up, and sometimes we are angry at them for leaving us. For some of us the jobs we work have been lost or are not all we dreamed. For some of us when we look back we remember the weddings, the new babies, the time spent away with family and friends. Life has been good and we hope that the next year will be full of the same.

After looking back,  we take that moment now to think about how we would like to improve ourselves in the next year. For some of us this means we hear about New Year’s resolutions and by the time you read this you have already set them aside or you don’t even bother making them. For others we do spend time thinks about where we want to go and what we could do a little better. I am terrible at resolutions. Sure I know I ate a few too many Christmas cookies and need to be a little more carful for the next few weeks about what I eat, but to actually set goals and then work to fulfill them is something I tend not to do. It may be because I am just not a list person. Even if I do sit down and make a list, I am more likely to forget or lose it than actually take it to the grocery store with me. So resolutions just don’t happen for me. I am not going to promise to: Lose Weight and Get Fit, Learn Something New, Eat Healthier and Diet, Get Out of Debt and Save Money, Spend More Time with Family, Travel to New Places, Be Less Stressed, Volunteer, Drink Less or quit smoking (the top ten made and broken resolution according to Time Magazine).

Instead I want to take a moment to remember who I am and who I would like to be.

You think I'd have it down by now Been practicin' for thirty years
I should have walked a thousand miles So what am I still doin' here, yeah
Reachin' out for that same old piece of forbidden fruit

I slip and fall and I knock my halo loose
Somebody tell me, what's a boy supposed to do?

I get so clumsy, I get so foolish, I get so stupid And then I feel so useless
But You're sayin' You love me and You're still gonna hold me
And that You wanna be near me 'cause You're makin' me holy Still makin' me holy, yeah

Chris Rice, Clumsy

I have experienced this song as part of my call story. I know I have issues, who doesn’t. I know there are places where I need change. But when God looks at me, when God looks at you. God doesn’t measure our flaws and failing. God looks at us acknowledges where we have messed up, broken down, missed the mark. But the look in God’s eyes is love. God sees through the pain, the hurt, the anger, the too many cookies, the lack of compassion, those places where our halo has slipped a little or quite a lot and sees a beloved a child of God. God looks with compassion on us and lets us know that God will hold us, be near us, guide us. God is there willing and ready to help us become a little more holy.

This year as you look back or look forward, remember that God is there with you and is still making you holy, is still loving you, is still making you holy.