New Year, New Beginnings.
We are bombarded with diet plans, detox programmes, plan your holiday, declutter your home. Resolutions
are made, goals are set but there is one thing we cannot control and
that is life getting in the way! There is an age old phrase, "if you
want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans!"
Some
folk myself included have learned not to set new year resolutions
because one can almost guarantee instant failure within a matter of days
:-). Any dieter will tell you that to make a food out of bounds is to
make that food suddenly desirable!
Magazines
and the Internet exhort us to make this year the best ever and one
popular theme is finding your word for the year. My word for 2015 was
Hope. So no surprise that over the course of the year I was given
plenty of opportunity to try and live that word :-).
I
remember listening to a lady share her cancer journey and she wrote
many words of encouragement and scripture passages and dotted them
around the house. One such phrase was, " To hope means hoping when
everything is hopeless, otherwise it is not a virtue at all. Hope
requires us to look ahead and almost cast aside the mess in which we
find ourselves. To fix our eyes on Jesus as the storm rages around us,
so much easier said than done.
When Dave
encountered an unexpected and scary relapse late on in the year, I knew
that my only way of coping was to look for some semblance of joy in each
day. As always I look through the camera eye and so began a series of
daily blog posts and images that upheld me during the darkest moments.
God knowing me through and through blessed me in so many ways and as
the days rolled into advent my yearly participation in the DPP began.
Sharing with others one photo and a comment for each day, not only
documented the usual feasts of St Nicholas and St Lucia, gift wrapping
and candle lighting but also the unprecedented rains, caravan cooking
for friends and stories by candle light due to the power outage. Each
photo a tangible memory of that moment in time and space.
It
can be hard to remain positive during adversity but when we concentrate
on lack we become depressed; when we are depressed we see the glass
half empty instead of half full and suddenly we are dying of thirst.
Some folk keep a gratitude journal. Can you keep a running list of
giving thanks? Ann Voskampf did just that and wrote a book charting her
journey. The thirteenth century German mystic Meister Eckhart
believed that, " if the only word you ever said was thank you," it would
be enough.
If however this year fills you
with uncertainty and dread do not be discouraged. St Benedict in his
writings always reminds us to begin again, this might be at the start of
each day or several times throughout the day, which is often referred
to as a do -over in our house :-). Jesus fell under the weight of His
cross so that we might remember that it is the getting up again that
counts!
Your challenge might be to live each day as faithfully as you
can and to offer the sorrows and sufferings to God. No suffering is
wasted as He takes all and in so doing weaves a beautiful tapestry
unique to each individual. When you rise tomorrow ask, "What is the
true work I am to do today?" Teach me O Lord to number my days that I
may gain a heart of wisdom.
For when we take
the time to not only offer our day to God but to ask for his guidance
and open our hearts and really listen God allows the Holy in the
commonplace. For me it was an unexpected oasis of peace on Christmas Eve
~ a God planned moment of not being at home cleaning and baking but a
quiet moment at Leighton Moss RSPB cafe for a cappuccino! Last minute
food shopping as well as card delivery to friends in Silverdale afforded
this interlude. Sunshine, blue skies and no demands, God is the best
physician :-).
Whether you are a planner, a
dreamer or a take life as it comes person, be open to the Spirit within
you. All change takes time and this is God's greatest gift to you at
the start of this New Year; three hundred and sixty five never before
lived mornings and starlit evenings, fifty two weeks of discovery,
twelve months of growth and four splendid seasons. So as you enter into
2016 take the hand of your creator and "welcome this New Year of things never been."
