Don’t ask me what it is, but there’s something about summertime that seems to have a way of making you feel just a little bit more alive and just a little bit more capable of achieving whatever crazy dreams that may occupy your daydreams.

The gold in the sun has a way of reaching the innermost parts of you, warming you from the inside out and pushing those dreams out along with it in the most exciting way possible.

You don’t need a monumental date to create something new. You don’t need New Years, and you don’t need something detrimental to pick yourself back up from. You can start right where you are. You never know what could come of it if you simply keep an open mind to what life has in store. I want to take all that it has for what it is, but I also have my own share of hopes for what lies ahead.

So, to the next 12 weeks of my life:

I hope that you are a breath of fresh air. I hope that you finish a work in me that started long ago. The winter of this past year hung around way too long, and I am in desperate need of a summer so healthy that it erases any trace of the dead that came along with the cold.

I hope that you bring the brightest of colors into my life. I dream of the most vibrant hues, finally bringing life to a painting that has been just a shade too dull for a minute too long.

I hope that the next 12 weeks bring out the best parts of me. That the good parts within me will be strengthened, and that I’ll discover something new about myself. Something challenging yet something that makes everything somehow click.

I want to fall in love with the simple things all over again. Fall in love with simplicity, with the blessings that surround me every single day. I don’t want to take a single thing for granted. We are far more blessed than we ever realize, and I don’t want the magnitude of that to be lost on me for a single day.

I want to see prayers answered and mountains moved. I want to experience a sense of cleansing, and a joy that begins in the depth of my heart. I want to see moments so beautiful and so wild that there’s no other explanation for them except for the fact that they came straight from the hand of God himself.

I want the next 12 weeks to be so full of moments that words cannot do justice. I am in love with documentation. Journaling, photos, videos – I love it all and want to capture the most precious moments. But some moments are simply too precious to be documented because no form of that can do them justice. They are so spontaneous and so vivid that they are too good to ever forget. Those are my most favorite memories, the ones that are stored nowhere but in your heart.

I want the next 12 weeks to challenge me. I want to look back at the end of the summer and see so much growth in who I am and in my relationships. I crave deeper relationships, with both myself, those that I surround myself with, and my relationship with Jesus. I want to be pushed, and I want to see new strengths and weaknesses developing within me. In 12 weeks I want to be better.

I want to learn how to let go this summer. I want to learn how to accept things for what they are and to not let every detail affect me so deeply. I want the next 12 weeks to teach me how to truly live in the moment and to not get bogged down by things that have happened in the past, nor things that could take place in the future. For each moment is fleeting, and things will never again be the exact same as they are right now, and right here. Cherish that. Make the most of each day.

I want the next 12 weeks to push me to a state of contentment and peace. Where I am able to see where I’m going next, and the purpose of where I’ve been. I want to find new doors and new loves.

All the hopes and dreams for the next season of life can never change what is, and what will be. But it’s the ability to be able to look back and see everything come together for good is what makes my heart truly happy. Regardless of what that looks like, and regardless of what life brings, I couldn’t be more excited.

To the next 12 weeks.