I begin thinking about my words for the year as I get close to the end of the year. As you can read in my previous post my words last year were Trust and Rest. I struggled a little this time with finding my word. I was drawn to the idea of "new" but I just couldn't get at it exactly. The verse and promise that kept coming to mind was 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"
I also was having trouble finding a place to hike. New Year's Day this year was on a Sunday, which meant we couldn't leave until after church and we couldn't go very far since it gets dark around 5:30. Rain was also in the forcast and it had been rainy and cloudly all week. I still wanted to go somewhere new - somewhere we had never been. After looking on the Tennessee state park website I found a place to go that was only an hour away and it was supposed to stop raining after lunch. Thomas and I packed a quick lunch after church and headed to Davy Crockett Birthplace State Park. It is a small park with a short trail along the river. We did get a short hike in without rain and enjoyed our lunch of soup in a covered picnic shelter.
It was a beautiful drive on the way home. There were low hanging clouds below the mountains in the distance, but I couldn't find a good place to stop to take the picture. I just keep saying to Thomas how beautiful they were. I told Thomas about the church that I had seen and we started looking for it.
So as I took pictures from different angles and perspectives and exposures, I found my word for the year. I guess really it is a phrase - "Finding the New." As I had to look to find a new place to hike and find my new words we have to seek for the new. Paul tells us in Ephesians 4: 23-24 that we are "to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."