17: new calendars

[sorry this is late, my internet would not cooperate last night]

I *love* this time of year. I love fall, I love crisp, fresh, cool air. I love bright blue skies and leaves crunching underneath my feet. I love the promise of snow right around the corner [I know, I know, I hear you groaning].

(Now my inner office nerd is going to come out...) and I love getting a new agenda. I use a weekly planner to keep track of home visits held for my work, phone calls made, annual assessments due, client services... I write down every single client contact, I log time worked, I record phone numbers... I highlight items as I enter the case note so I can keep track of what is and isn't done... and as you might imagine, the end of every week is measured by two pages scribbled and scratched and highlighted in every color of the rainbow.

So getting a new agenda is kind of a big deal. It's tied closely with my deep seated passion for office supplies... but it goes a step farther than that. It's not just your average pack of post-its or new pen (which I also love)...

A new agenda is a fresh slate.

No scribbles, no highlights, no plans, no past, no history...

You can start fresh. You can reorganize your system for keeping track of things. You can add new contacts in actual alphabetical order rather than just tacking them on to the end of the list. Take out clients that are no longer yours to care for. Clean sheets of paper full of promise of work to be done, lives to be impacted, calls to be made, new people to meet.

I'm pretty sure our Father loves new-agenda-day just as much as I do... that day that we lay down our history and pick up a fresh, new, scribble-free future that is laid open for Him to write His plans and purposes on!

I love a fresh slate, a clean start, empty pages... let's make today a fresh start! Let's make a today one that we lay before Him as a fresh piece of paper to write upon... plans that He can later highlight as completed, as He whispers to our heart "well done, good and faithful servant..."

The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning! {Lamentations 3:22-23, NLT}