Illumination Writes

Originally Published January 30, 2023

Hello everyone! Welcome to 2023—even though I’m posting this really close to the beginning of February. Thank you all for being so patient with me as I was on hiatus.

Even though we are quite a way past the new year now, I’d like to chat about some things that have been on my mind about 2023. As many of you know, I recently relocated to a new city, which has made this new year feel as if I’m truly starting over.

One of my friends was giving me a word of encouragement a few weeks ago and she told me that my life was like a blank canvas at this moment. I wholeheartedly agree with that word. Over the course of the past two years, I’ve been going through a sort of reset that built up to leaving my hometown. Thus, I am calling 2023 my ‘blank canvas year’ where I will be embarking on a new adventure—living in a new city, making new friends, finding new creative spaces—new everything.

Having a blank canvas set before you can be daunting, to say the least. I feel intimidated by what colors to use and how broad my strokes should be. Simultaneously, I think that I have needed this empty space to figure out who I am and what I want my life to look like.

With so many choices of how to fill my canvas this season, I have felt the need to be a good steward. I don’t want to fill this canvas with things that won’t matter in months or years. I must begin building things that will outlast this season and will give me a leg up in the next one. I want to steward my time, resources, health, and creativity well. However, I am not perfect, and I am stewarding some things better than others right now. But my overall goal is to steward all areas to the best of my ability, so I can use the canvas I have set before me in the best possible way.

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts recently, the Outrageous Hope Podcast with Mandy Woodhouse (I’ll add a link at the end for y’all to go check it out—I highly recommend it) and she has been talking about doing hard things and acting like your calling. She put language to what I have been feeling internally over the past few weeks. I am a writer, so I need to be a good steward of my time to exercise that calling. I want to be more healthy, so I need to steward my resources to invest in healthier foods and maybe a pair of new running walking shoes to get some activity in the day. It’s little things like that, and most of the time, they are not easy.

Even as I am writing this, I have failed at some aspect of these aspirations, but the goal remains there, and I am intentionally taking baby steps towards it. While I may not be getting up as early as I would like, I have committed to working on this blog at least once a week. If I don’t eat what I ideally should, at least I am eating healthier than I did the week before. It takes intentionality to develop new relationships and meet new people, which means I actually have to go to public places and interact with others.

Although it’s hard at times, if I continue to commit to stewarding my life well, maybe I will have a masterpiece by the end of this year.

I have a lot of things I am looking forward to in 2023, and I hope the same for all of you. I encourage you all to be good stewards of the opportunities that sit at your feet this year and take advantage of the time you have and pursue what you are feeling led to do. Go create a masterpiece!

Link to the Outrageous Hope Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/448fL8ZEz41fcrcdkmuoKA?si=38b461eae4184f92