Happy New Year!  It is 2020 and I cannot even believe it: the Roaring Twenties all over again.  I’m not sure why the year 2020 is so much more surreal to me than 2019, but it is. I am so excited to have this blank canvas in front of me. I realize that it is just yesterday’s tomorrow, but something about the first day of a new year gives me refreshed hope and childlike anticipation of all of the best that is yet to come!

Every year I pick a word to really try and focus on – my word is my “rose-colored glasses” for that year, and I try to see each day through the lenses of that word. This year I am choosing, WONDER.  I love WONDER because it can be a noun and it can be a verb; a feeling or a desire and I want 2020 to be filled with it.

Google dictionary describes WONDER (the noun) as, “a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.”  I want to be in WONDER constantly as I seek out the inexplicable beauty in people and in situations. I want to be in awe of the world around me and in awe of the people God puts in my path and in awe of the journey He has me on in 2020.  I want that feeling of a bright-eyed child seeing snow for the first time or a little girl meeting her favorite Disney princess for the first time—I want innocent and expectant WONDER to envelop me this year.

I also love the verb definition of WONDER, to “desire or be curious to know something.”  I want this WONDER in my relationship with Christ. I want to long to know Him more. I want to be consumed with curiosity about God and His promises and His love for me.  I want my WONDER to translate into learning and spiritual growth in 2020.

WONDER is childlike awe and longing. . . .

I hope that today gives you a spark of hope and excitement, and I hope that your blank slate makes you as happy as my blank slate does today. Today is the first opportunity we get to make 2020 the best year ever—one day at a time starting today!

(The picture is of Gabby meeting Princess Tiana many years ago and I love everything this picture silently says–so much WONDER.)

Jamie Jo Braner, Director of Alumni Engagement