Happy New Year!

One of my New Year resolutions is to start blogging more/again! I can't tell you yet what the other resolutions were because I'll have explaining to do if I don't keep them! I learned today that the average New Year resolution lasts less than a week! Hopefully this one will last longer!

 To start the year off in picking up my pencil again here is an article I recently submitted for the WGUSA newsletter:

 Happy New Year!

 The tree is put away, ornaments carefully wrapped, new toys are scattered all over the place and we, in the blink of an eye, rang in the new year only to wake up the next day, go back to work and carry on as if nothing was different. And for a lot of us nothing is that different. However, for some of us things are quite different and "happy" New Year just doesn't do it.

 Like you, I'm sure, I spent the last few days of 2012 pondering over what the year held. I watched many friends say goodbye to loved ones, some of them their own children. As I know that pain myself I know the emptiness they felt when there was one less stocking to stuff on what would have been that child's first and second Christmas. I also said goodbye to a family member at the beginning of last January and remember thinking then that this was not a great start to THAT new year. I watched friends struggle through marriage and health issues and have been continually on the edge of my seat watching events around our country unfold. On this side of the country we had the devastation of Hurricane Sandy and are still picking up the pieces, LITERALLY, of that. We also had a new election which was pretty monumental for our country and will bring some changes that many are not happy about and, to cap off the year, I sat stunned, numb, in disbelief when I learned about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. How could something so heinous happen? Like many of you I walked around choked up for days thinking about those precious little lives that where snuffed out with no warning. My oldest is about the same age as the children that were killed and the pain I felt just thinking about how those families now have to deal with the loss of their sons and daughters...well I just don't have words. To think that the unopened gifts and the Christmas outfits that may have never been worn are constant reminders that Christmas and New Year were missing one less Grandchild, son, daughter, brother, sister....brings tears to my eyes even now.

 So how DO we celebrate the coming of the New Year? How do we rise up out of all this trauma? How do we put one foot in front of the other and walk in to such unknown territory? I'm left baffled most days after watching the news and wondering how things have gotten so bad? How do we find the good? Is it still here?

I was reminded recently of Isaiah 45:2- “I [God] will go before you and will level the mountains; I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron.” A promise that no matter where life takes us, as a person, family, country that our God has gone before us and made our path. He knows what's up there good or bad. And while we are guaranteed to have bad, we are also GUARANTEED to have good because that is the God we serve and He is good!

 "Our God is greater, our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other. Our God is healer, awesome and power our God, our God." You know the song, SING IT OUT!!!

 So how do we do 2013? We walk that path! It's that simple! Because the good IS still here. It comes from all situations and all things and it lines the sides of that path cheering us on. (Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.) The speed bumps are there too but remember He has gone before you and leveled the mountains, broken down gates of bronze and cut the iron bars. So get your sneakers on start walking!