What's New?

Elisa Morgan, Publisher, FullFill

You know what question really bugs me? “What’s new?” I hate being asked it at parties, all open-ended and accompanied by arched eyebrows of high expectations of my response. Then comes the pause of silence as I roll options around in my cheeks, tasting which answer could possibly be presented to my questioner. Out loud. In public. For others to hear.

“What’s new?”

Well there’s the reality that my husband has accepted new responsibilities in his job that require him to fly even more and longer away from our home. He’s tired but he’s also happy.

Then there’s the recent whisper from my daughter that she’s slowly recovering from losing her precious soon-to-be-born-and-adored baby last year. His tiny feet hold his father’s wedding ring in replica on the mouse pad she presented me at Christmas.

And there’s my adult son’s return home to health and hope. At last.

I could share these responses, but in many cases they feel too vulnerable. Or maybe it’s that they’re “not mine.”

“What’s new?” I swallow and roll my tongue again. Ah, my own bites there at last. I chew.

A three-quarter completed brand-spankin’ new version of the NIV Mom’s Devotional Bible, due out in the spring of 2013. (I giggle every time I tell someone I’m writing The Bible.)

Three book proposals in various stages of creation. All rawly personal and still in the formative discernment process where I wrestle with God, questioning, “Are these ideas for me or for others?”

Tuesday nights in Bible study on the book of Philippians with my neighbors. Grandson Marcus sleepovers with Yia Yia and BeePees. Monthly Mondays with my twenty-plus year old Covenant Group. A couple of trips for fun and a slew of speaking engagements.

A calendar full of commitments I made last year and now must keep this year.

But none of this is really new. And what part of it do I want to share with another?

“What’s new?” I think again and recognize just why the question annoys me so. The pressure to constantly create, to be for others what I’m not really, the discomfort with silence so that I leap to expression too soon. Nothing here is new. Instead, I find hard pits I’m learning to reject. Performance. Pressure. Pretence.

I spit them out one by one.

Left with a mouthful of my own tongue and teeth, I taste again.

What’s new? The year: 2012. The month: January. The day: Tuesday, the second. The hour. The minute. The second. I’ve never been here before, in this exact moment.

“What’s new?”

Me.

And another year of discovering how God has made me to be here and now in this moment. To know him and be known by him. To love him and be loved by him. Now. New.

My turn to annoy you: ”What’s new?” Ready to find out? Happy New Year...!

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17