Skip to main content

Grateful, Thankful and Hopeful: Close One Chapter and Open Another


December 31, 2012.  The eve before another new year is a great time to close the chapter on the old book and open the first chapter in the new book.

Closing the chapter.

This morning as I sit warm and toasty in my cozy chair beside by New Year's Tree before a very busy 24 hours begins...I'm grateful.

I'm grateful to have this opportunity for closure.  To stand back and take a look at 2012 in all of its greatness, victory and failures and put it into perspective.  From God's point of view my year was a very brief moment in light of eternity.

I Praise God for giving me the opportunity to live and to grow.  

To have time with my family.  To grow another year older with my husband.  To watch my boys become men.  I am so thankful for God's provision and His protection.  I'm humbled by his grace and mercy in my life.  

HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD!  Truly.  He knows us and pursues us with His Spirit and love.  He provides salvation and restoration.  Healing and hope.  He lifts us up with a peace that is truly above all understanding and a joy that strengthens.

I confess my pride, stubbornness, sloth, gluttony and apathy.  I'm getting as fat and lazy as my dog...physically and spiritually.   Fear has loomed large at times.  Taking risk seems to be more scary and my spirit not as feisty.    I've withheld love and I've held grudges and taken offense that was not mine to take.  

And Yet...God forgives, loves and holds me.  He has given me another new beginning.  Another day of new mercies.  

I've made amazing memories in 2012 and believe that I have taken some great risk and jumped off some cliffs and created moments in the lives of others.

I've sat on bleachers (or rather paced beside them) for hundreds of hours for wrestling and football.   
I've shared joy, victory, defeat and worry on the phone with my boys.
I've spent the last month with my family in a way that we have not for several years.
I had the privilege of saying good-bye to my Mother (in-law) and celebrating her influence in our lives.
I've started and completed some great things.
I've watched Monday night football with my husband.
I've prayed.
I've read and learned.
I've connected and I've disconnected.

Now it is time.

Open A New Chapter.

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

Stealing from my husband's sermon...

This year I will:

Give It Everything I Have.  (Col. 3:23-24 Eph 6:6-8)

Show my Love All The More!  (1 Thess. 3:12-13)

Not Let Fear Hinder God's Work in Me Or Let it Lead to Regrets  (Mark 4:35-41)

Vigorously Pursue My Hopes and Dreams (Acts 16:6-8)

It is The Time to LIVE WITH EVERYTHING WE HAVE!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Starting a Journey

September 3, 2010 Originally posted How to Begin a Journey 1. Pick a destination or simply start. 2. Plan a detailed itinerary or just take the first step. 3. Pack everything or travel lightly. I am choosing to just begin. To leave behind the baggage, pick up a day pack, and go. Several nights before we moved to Ogallala, I was praying about the transition when I heard that still, small voice of God. In that moment, I knew He heard my Heart's Cry. He hears every whispered plea, every unspoken longing. If I truly sit with that truth, it humbles me. What courage, boldness, passion, and decisiveness I have when I remember: He never leaves or forsakes me. He provides for my every need according to His riches in glory. My hope is to encourage you He hears your Heart's Cry too.
2 comments
Read more

1940 Canned Apple Butter: Family Root Cellar

I loved exploration as a child.  From opening the door and going down the stairs to get something from my Grandma's root cellar or exploring old homesteads while checking cows.  I credit my Mom with teaching us to appreciate those things that represented the people who had gone before us. When I moved with my husband and boys to a house on the family ranch-I began exploring immediately.  This was the house my Aunt and Uncle lived in during my childhood.  My Grandparents had lived there and many other families dating back to 1900 when it was built.   With two little boys in tow, I made my way to the root cellar and found a treasure cove.  Old text books belonging to the original family who had been a teacher, the original medicine cupboard, tools, trash and memorabilia.   I felt like an archeologist sifting through layers of debris representing generations and culture.  And I was.  I hauled truckloads of trash to the dump (some...
4 comments
Read more

Diabetes-Opened to Disease OR Open to Connecting to my Strengths

I've tried living in denial for two years after the big D diagnoses was handed over.  Honestly, I just don't want to talk about it.  Outwardly seemly calm and disconnected from it.  Inwardly terrified. As a plant that is stressed is open to disease, injury and death so to our bodies are.  I opened myself up to this.  Stress, lack of sleep, bad nutrition, overweight and lack of exercise.  For some reason I believed that if I ran fast enough and worked hard enough, I would outrun my family genes.  The tiny room in the back of my brain locked with a key has kept the fear of this disease at bay even though I could hear its screaming when life quieted down. My Aunt died piece by piece to this disease.  First a heart attack and quadruple by-pass.  Then a toe.  Next a foot.  Legs came next along with more heart attacks.  Kidneys shutting down.  She died very young. When I was little, my Aunt Ally gave herself s...
4 comments
Read more