What are you hoping to see happen in 2020? Will you regard each day as something you own or as a gift that comes from God? What are the two most important things you can do this year? With New Year celebrations ongoing, recounting 2019 memories, anticipating days of our lives in 2020, and making resolutions to improve who we are and what we do mulls around in most minds of God’s children. It sure does in mine as I begin a new season of my life as a country girl …again! Growing up on a farm in a Christian, close knit community (Rebel City) provided lessons of life in living color! Hard work and happy days pumping gas, stocking shelves, going to church, singing His songs, being a cheerleader, barning tobacco, picking produce, making time for milestone celebrations, and pulling together as a close knit family to get it all done makes my heart smile and swell with joy in remembrance of those eighty seasons of my life! The next 460 seasons have been filled with chapters of loving and cherishing two husbands, two sons, two daughters in law, two step daughters and sons in law, seven grandchildren, three siblings, three churches, four homes, two businesses, career in classroom and daycare teaching His children, surviving cancer, ministry giving help and hope to people in my hometown, learning to live happily here with my two husbands, parents, grandparents, sister, father in law, brother in law, and a whole host of extended family and faithful friends in heaven, and enjoying the love story I have humbly and happily been blessed by God to write (live) out loud in love! With the dawning of a new year, my story will have a different setting, same characters, and new chapters filled with what the Lord can do when we step in faith to His plans for our lives. A few words from one of my favorite Christmas carols…’exceedingly great joy’ best describes the song in my heart as my son’s family and I begin a new season living in a farmhouse built by faith, hard work, happiness, and a heap of prayers by The Norris family. With grateful hearts and moving miracles, five families have experienced God’s sweet countenance complete with address changes and new chapters waiting to be written. With anticipation and appreciation, I celebrate my 66th New Year in awe of God’s goodness. How great is our God who hears and answers His children’s prayers in ways higher and plans bigger than we could being to imagine! On the third day of 2020, may we the people God created and cares for begin our New Year with a resolution to keep Him in the center of all our plans each of the four seasons we will celebrate this year! May we see each day as a GIFT that comes from HIM with extra effort given to begin and end each day with reserved time for prayer and praise (sweet communion) with God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! He promises to hear, to heal, to help and never fail His children. He longs to have a close relationship with each of His sheep. He is waiting to enter our hearts and commune daily - being a Favorite listed FIRST in each of our hearts (as we list favorites on our phones who we call often and spend hours talking and listening to) and sticking by us through seasons of sunshine and sorrow. Relationships grow greater and gooder (grammatically incorrect but powerful portrayal of what happens when we honor God, live by Jesus’ example, listen, look forward to communing with, and love the Holy Spirit living inside our hearts and giving guidance each day of the year! Yes, God still speaks to HIs children and works miracles in our lives. “Human one, listen closely, and take to heart every word I say to you.” Ezekiel 3:10 The perfect closing for this New Year’s story shares how we love to plan ahead for upcoming seasons and pencil in important dates in 2020 planners. One of my favorite Christmas gifts is a Guidepost Daily Planner. Thumbing through last year’s journal and planner before placing them on a shelf in my library, I pause to remember red letter days with my handwriting giving details. The desire to replay precious days or to have done things differently on painful days can overwhelm if we dwell on the past. Instead, we must close chapters of past years while embracing the gift of a New Year. The real questions confronting us is not how we spent days of our lives last year? But how will we spend days of our lives this year! How will we use the most precious of God’s gifts - life and time? We can make long lists of things we hope to accomplish and commit ourselves to New Year resolutions, but we really need to do these two things in 2020: love God with all that we are, and love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves.
Lord, please hear our prayers as we humbly bow before you with grateful hearts for a New Year and opportunities to write chapters filled with faith, hope, and LOVE! Keep us from seeing each day as something we own but rather as a GIFT that comes from YOU!
Happy Writing (living) through each season of 2020! May God bless and be with you (in your hearts) and seen in your stories as we welcome a New Year with exceedingly great joy while remembering LOVE is what really matters!