Happy(?) New Year

I can't describe how relieved I am that 2011 is over. It was a pretty crazy year: full of wonderful things (being a senior, prom, graduation, driving, Nicaragua, being viewed as someone maturing into an adult, discovering a lot about God and myself) and some incredibly crappy things (problems with friends, graduation, Nicaragua, being viewed as someone maturing into an adult, insane spiritual attacks, the job situation, etc).

While there was a lot of good out of the last 12 months, this past month has probably been the worst out of them all--and if it's not the worst, it's pretty high up on the list. So feeling that way right now, I'm rating 2011 (probably unfairly) to be a rather bad year.

Earlier, I shut off my laptop and climbed into bed to get as much sleep as I can get before church occurs in approximately 8 hours. I've been trying to build a habit of talking to God for at LEAST 5 minutes before turning off the lights, but with it being past 2 in the morning, I didn't think I'd make it.

So I lay there, trying to sum up everything inside of me into a more suitable amount of words. Finally I came up with "Lord... just let this next year be better."

I was about to leave it at that when I heard something odd, literally seconds after the words left my lips. It was a slight rustling noise coming from outside...and it was growing louder, and more audible.

It was rain. Raindrops, pattering on the street and the sidewalk and the driveway and then on the roof of the house. How strange, it hasn't rained all day and all week and it's not even meant to come up in the forecast as far as I know. Yet the rain threw itself down.

And then I got a random thought in my head. That's all it was, just a thought, yet I knew instantly that I had not come up with it myself.

"Do you hear that rain?" the thought said to me. "That's what I want to do inside you. I want to cleanse you. I want to pour myself into you to cleanse and heal the wounds. I want to wash away all the hurt and the anger and the bitterness that's grown in the past year, and I want to take it away so that you can have a new start for this new year. But you're going to have to want it too."

It was a startling thought, but it made sense. I looked through drawers to find something to write on and, failing that, reopened my laptop to type everything down. During that time, while I had gotten off the bed to search my room, the rain had quietly ceased.

Since I'm here, I might as well share something I found today. Neil Gaiman (author of the novels Coraline, Stardust, American Gods, Neverwhere, and more) is one of my favorite writers. He has such a way with words that just really strikes me deep inside. Because, well, no one writes quite the way he does. He gets right to the matter and twists and bends words and sentences to do his bidding, and I deeply admire (and covet) that.

Anyways, here is an excerpt from his blog today:

Saturday, December 31, 2011

My New Year Wish

A decade ago, I wrote:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

And almost half a decade ago I said,

...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.

And for this year, my wish for each of us is small and very simple.

And it's this.

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.