Yet as we stand at the precipice of this new year...2008....one cannot help but wonder what the new year will hold ? When we stood at this same spot last year, looking into the face of 2007, none of us had any idea what the New Year would hold for us. As I think back, I've seen lots of good things that have occurred in the past 12 months...none of which anyone saw coming on Jan. 1, 2007:
A good friend found her soul mate, and is now happily married....
Our son-in-love was offered his "dream job" out of the blue and begins today....
Two of our daughter's friends both thought they would never hold a child, now are both new moms...one to twins!
God moved upon the heart of a woman at church to begin a Christian Writer's Circle...a REAL blessing to me and to others at our church!
I started this blog!!
All of these are wonderful things that have brought great joy and happiness to me and to those I love. Yet, there were also many things that happened this year that have brought great pain and distress to many, things they never dreamed would come their way.
A cousin's cancer spread to her bones and took her life. Less than a month later, her daughter also died of cancer. A husband and father, mother and grandmother were left devastated and alone, experiencing the pain of double loss.
A friend's mother suffered a fall in February that caused her health to steadily decline and she went to be with the Lord shortly before Thanksgiving. This friend entered a world of caregiving and struggles she had never known as well as slowly watching the life of her precious mother ebb away.
Another friend was out for a morning walk, when struck by a car. Her life was nearly lost, but she miraculously survived, but did lose a leg in the process. Now she is faced with the ordeal of healing and learning to adjust to life with an aritificial limb.
Our son and his wife, married only a few short months, had their house flooded during the Christmas holidays of 2006. They had just barely recovered from that when their home was burglarized in March.
Our son's co-worker fell on the job, severely breaking his leg. The leg has not healed properly, workman's comp refuses to pay for the needed bone graft to promote the healing process. He is left without a job and unable to work while his wife has quit her job to care for him and her mother who is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's.
None of us knows what the next minute, hour or day holds for us. It may be a HUGE blessing or it may a devastating blow. One thing we can be sure of is this....GOD IS IN IT and He will not leave us or forsake us. He has promised to walk with us through the storms of life, to hold our hands, to never let us down and to never let us go.
Helen Steiner Rice, one of my favorite poets, wrote the following poem. It is one of my favorites. May it be a reminder to us to live THIS day, to rejoice in THIS day, for it is all we have.
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow…
Yesterday's dead,
Tomorrow's unborn,
So there's nothing to fear
And nothing to mourn,
For all that is past
And all that has been
Can never return
To be lived once again...
And what lies ahead
Or the things that will be
Are still in GOD'S HANDS
So it is not up to ME
To live in the future
That is God's great unknown
For the past and present
God claims for His own..
So all I need do
Is to live for TODAY
And trust God to show me
THE TRUTH and the WAY..
For it's only the memory
Of things that have been
And expecting tomorrow
To bring trouble again
That fills my today
Which God wants to bless
With uncertain fears
And borrowed distress...
For all I need live for
Is this one little minute,
For life's HERE and NOW
And eternity's in it.
---Helen Steiner Rice
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