New Year's Thoughts

  I'm sitting in my favorite chair in the living room with my laptop open waiting for me to make a blog post. 

    Outside the window everything is in varying shades of drab browns and grays, except for the telephone wires that are stretched across my view. They have glistening raindrops clinging to them which makes things look just a little less gloomy for now. A fog is creeping in, inching its way down over the hills blanketing everything in its path in its misty shroud. It's only a matter of minutes before all the grays and browns have been swallowed up and I'll see nothing but fog.

    2018 had been the dreariest year I have ever experienced while living here. In total, we had only thirteen sunny days all year. Sunny as in, the sun shone from sunrise to sunset. There were days that the sun shone for a few hours, but then it rained or became overcast and cloudy.

    So far, even though we are only two days into the new year, we have yet to see the sun. 

    Growing up we always kept careful watch on the weather the first twelve days in January. Jotting down temperatures and weather conditions hourly. By studying it, we could predict the weather patterns quite accurately for the remainder of the year. Somehow we got away from doing that. Is it because weather no longer fascinates us as much? Are we too busy and it's too time consuming? Or …?

    Instead of focusing on the weather yesterday, the girls and I were working on our lists of things we hope to do this year. Our New Year's goals we tend to keep more on the fun side instead of imposing lifestyle changes or harsh rules upon ourselves that we would very likely not meet.

     We're still putting our finishing touches to them, and I'll share the lists once we've finished them. And as we do the things on those lists I might share them here as well.

     As I'm standing here at the beginning of a new year, I can't help but reflect on the year we have just completed. There were times of joy, times of sorrow. Blessings heaped upon blessings, and even during the hard times, God remained faithful, true, and ever present. And so as I look out at the year stretched out before us, I don't know what joy or pain lies ahead, but I'm so thankful I know Jesus and He knows me.