It’s all on the horizon. The faint light of dawn. The birds are awakening. The frost crunching on the ground. Crispness in the air. The breeze taking your breath away as it hits you just right.

You hear the rustling of the cows making their way across the pasture and the horses nickering for their grains. The final stars twinkle to welcome the rainbow sky of the sunrise, and you sigh into a new day

We could say to focus on a resolution, firm determination, decision or action. Something that typically stops before it has a chance to begin. Goals sound better, more achievable in small doses, but often have roadblocks of self-doubt, outside interference, or laziness. Motivation sounds even better but it’s usually a lost puppy that nips at your heels or holds you back as a distraction. And when you are struggling, all of these things seem burdensome and stressful, like you must get this list journaled out, looking pretty like all the other Christians do- and then somehow find the strength to go do it.

I am looking at that horizon each morning, black, dark blue, bright orange line brushed across the bottom. Stars sprinkle overhead. Every day that orange comes earlier and earlier. The light likes to linger a bit longer. I think that what I should place there is the heaviest parts that still weigh me down and pray that one day I see that skyline with more than a sigh, but with joy.

Whatever we’re dealing with may still be there for awhile, some of it will never go away. We can’t flip the switch of a new dawn to erase the troubles and pain of yesterday. We can create a moment to breathe in fresh air even in a sigh and remember it’s new every moment.

The winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified prepare the soul for glory. —Richard Sibbes

I pray that it’s sanctification. Years and years and years of it, but sanctification non-the-less, for you, for me, for the truly weary.

The horizon is pretty. The morning colors differing from the dusk. The big sky reaching to the stars. Orange, purple, sky-blue pink. God’s splendor written across the atmosphere. Breathing in that sanctification and away those resolutions and goals.