Whatever else you choose to do as you close the books on 2021 and move toward the starting blocks of 2022, be sure to reserve time and space for honest self-assessment. Consider yourself not in the light of others you hold in low esteem, but over against the saint Christ created and called you to be.

“The original, shimmering self gets buried so deep that most of us end up hardly living out of it at all. Instead we live out all the other selves, which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather.” (Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets)