"New Year's" Resolutions

My name is Anna Hegarty, and I am from the East Vicariate. I was born and raised in Manhattan and have gone to St. Thomas More Parish all my life. From Kindergarten to 8^th grade, I attended Manhattan Catholic Schools, and freshman year I transitioned to the public high school. The most difficult part was going from my little class of 20, who were practically my second family, to a class of over 400. It was also hard not being able to practice my faith openly every day. But I joined the youth group at St. Thomas More, and found some new friends, along with some old ones too, who I could count on to be good influences to myself and our peers. Going to public schools has also allowed me to find new ways to show my faith in ways without even trying. I love coaching Special Olympics and helping out with the special education kids at my school whenever I can. When I am having a bad day, I can look to them and see God’s love in their smile and know I can count on him to take care of everything.

With a new year, comes those dreaded “New Year’s Resolutions”. Even though we may not express our goals out loud to others, we all have something in mind that we want to accomplish or change in our lives. Some are better than others at following through on their resolutions, and I can tell you from experience, I am not one of the better ones. I always mess up or forget about my goals and then tell myself, “maybe next year”, but I realized it’s called a “new year’s resolution," not because you are supposed to accomplish it on January 1^st, but because we have all year to do it. If you mess up, just start over and try again. It’s just like with our faith, if we mess up or falter, just start again. God doesn’t just want us to give up when it gets hard or when we fail, he wants us to keep going and strive to be the best WE can be.

Hebrews 3:13

"Encourage yourselves daily while it is still "today," so that none of you may grow hardened by sin"