Tag Archives: New Year

Out With the Old, In With the New

02 Thursday Jan 2025

Posted by in Celebrating

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

Saturday, 12/28/24

Empty stockings, bulging refrigerator. Dog toys and dust all over the floor. Silent Saturday, children have gone home. Instructions to read for the new gifts we own. Stacks of laundry, and weight growing too, we lied we wouldn’t eat for a day or two. A few strings and dust scattered under the tree; lights off, old and new ornaments smiling at me. Moments of “what happened to the time”, blend with new plans for new year to unwind. New candles to light, burned ones to store. In a week 2024 is no more.

Happy New Year, dear reader. January 2, 2025     

What a joyful surprise today! An unexpected visit from our previous neighbors who moved ‘up north’ a couple summers ago. The Opferman family, Michael, Karen, Joey, Tim and Megan were the sweetest neighbors ever and I miss them so much. This visit was the crowning touch to my holiday season! As the new year approached,  I’d had such varied thoughts flying around in my head.

Like new years and old; laughter, tears and being bold; hope and disappointments and blessings untold; fear and faith, sadness and joy and the world we face. All swirling and trying to make sense of each other as they occupy the same space. Focus, I need to focus!

Like a wind among autumn leaves as they mount upward around and around trying to reach the top of their swirling funnel, so have been my thoughts and until today I could not plant myself at the keyboard to focus on one new year’s message. Now I know it – no, it is not ‘may all your dreams come true’; nor is it ‘may you prosper in all you do’; nor is it any resolution for myself. (I am reminded each new year of my previous new year’s resolution some 20 or more years ago, which was to never make another new years resolution. I have kept it quite well.). Although, I’d be happy for you if all your dreams came true. But then what would there be left for you to hope? Oh, and I will celebrate every prosperous season of your life, but perhaps you need to continue striving in some things, to grow stronger in faith, in confidence, and have a reason to hope. 

My message this year, brought by today’s surprise visit is this – may each day hold some joy for you; one or many, small or big, a joy that you may be able to hope and work with a purpose. My joy is knowing Jesus loves me unconditionally, and wants me to succeed in every worthy endeavor. It makes working a joy. It makes hope against this world a joy. This joy brings new chances after failures. This joy offers new journeys for closed doors, and forgiveness for regrets. It is a win/win deal; His strength for my weakness; His wisdom for my lack of it; to know at the end of any failed effort or any rejection of good intentions, if I can say I did my best when the day is done, there is joy. Joy in peace, in knowing God continues with us, bringing joy in big and small ways and finishing the things we’ve begun. He lights new candles for us as He sees the need. Last evening I stepped outside to see an amazing sunset of fiery red and orange behind the thousands of dark bare tree branches reaching upward out of the woods into a navy blue sky. There was the slightest sliver of moon and above it was the ‘star light star bright, first star I see tonight’. Now THAT’S a candle! Shivering in the cold I felt joy in knowing that I know the creator of all this! Pure joy.

A few highlights among many personal joys for me in 2024: our son bought his first house; sweet friends Nan and Tonya beat cancer; another dear friend Dana has courageously beat obstacles in her journey toward healing; my brave mission leader and friend Beth had a successful first surgery before upcoming ones; my husband asked for a new bible for Christmas; and my husband is finally really and truly for sure and certain, retired from farming.

May each day hold for you at least one joy. Happy New Year! Trisha

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” James 1: 2-5 NKJV

Happy New Year

01 Sunday Jan 2023

Posted by in Celebrating, Encouragement

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Happy New Year friends! I suppose ‘happy’ is subjective, as well as all inclusive for the many things we wish one another as we closed chapter 2022, and began a new chapter, 2023. Even as I proclaimed ‘happy new year’ to my family last night, I knew we meant so much more. It includes the momentary “let’s celebrate the auld lang sine in a festive spirit”, but from me to them, and to you, it means more fully, “bless your hearts for surviving and thriving the past year, and may you reach bravely and blessed into the abyss of yet unknown”.

Most people who enjoy writing, feel they must say something about anything new I guess. So, with a fresh cup of gingerbread coffee in hand, may I add my two cents worth of ‘happy new year’. With that, I wish I could take all your anxiety, fear and hardships, tie them in a Hefty bag and send them out with our Friday waste pick up. But then, that is God’s job, and He, with all wisdom and clarity of the big picture, is the best at it.

I have been guilty in years past, of saying I was so glad a particular year was over and welcomed a year with a new number. As if any time frame could recognize our expectation for a number on our calendar to alter a thing. No, one day just follows another, and it is up to us to be grateful for every single one of them and to give each day our best shot. I’m not real good at it, but a runner doesn’t have to win to know what she needs to do better to win, right?

As I clear away the Christmas clutter (that which I thought was so warm, cheery and bright when I put it there!), I feel my head clearing as well. Finding the floor again and parting with things I couldn’t before, is liberating. Closing and sealing each box or tote, giving it a place on some shelf, and wiping the dust away makes me breathe a sigh of relief. Is that how we feel about the worn out year? What started 12 months ago as a bright and shiny new opportunity, has lost its luster, and feels ragged and rough, ready for the dumpster. Maybe my lesson to self is not to set those expectations too high; nor to feel disappointed because some issue didn’t magically change by the stroke of midnight December 31. A new year doesn’t promise perfection. Storms will rage; illnesses persist; interest rates rise and children still fall. But praise the Lord, these are temporary, and Jesus is still Lord of all. I am so thankful I can pray to a God Who listens and will never grow tired and weary of our petitions. I praise God for wanting to be our rock, our healer, our guide back home when we stray. Time fails us because we put our trust in it, instead of the one who controls it.

My wish for you all is as James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” May you be blessed with the desire to know more fully the One Who gave us life, taught us to love, and loves to see us happy. Trisha

Using What’s Available (I Just Hope it’s Not Black-eyed Peas)

05 Tuesday Jan 2021

Posted by in Encouragement, inspiration

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Hello blog world. I hope 2021 is starting out well for you. Notice I didn’t say ‘off and running’; where would it be running? (grimace) We are, no doubt, a bit gun-shy. As the cute Facebook message said of the new year, ‘tiptoe in, don’t touch anything…’ and we do know viruses and attitudes do not heed calendars. I did not attempt to thwart fate’s continuance of 2020 with black-eyed peas and pork belly. It’s fun and all, to see all those versions of New Year’s Day meals, but one, I am not superstitious and two, I hate black-eyed peas. I’m a pretty fair cook, so I like to eat my own cooking and as they say, if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy…so, we do not have the afore-mentioned peas. Bacon and sausage are the extent of our pork fare because I learned years ago that to go further would result in my husband’s pancreatic unrest. Which would lead to my unrest. Bless his heart.

Enough small talk. Truth is, I never plan a particular meal for New Year’s Day. There is always so much left over from Christmas meals, delicious not-so-healthy snacks and sandwich stuff we meant to use but kept replacing with fast food we caught on the run as we got last minute shopping done. I use what I have available. This year it was clean-out-the-fridge soup with grilled pimiento cheese sandwiches; no complaints from the residents.

Applying the ‘what’s available’ thought to our times, none of us planned on having a crappy year. But neither did anyone go without blessings; awaking each day to options is a blessing itself. We have something left over. Maybe not the fancy fare you’d have chosen, but there’s a menu to be had if you woke up able to breathe in the cold air, walk to the coffee maker, and find running water in your kitchen. And, yes, if all I had was black-eyed peas, I’d throw in enough bacon grease to make them tolerable, somehow.

My days begin with a precious pudgy pup taking me outside for his morning constitution. I take that opportunity to say good morning to God, or the birds, or the moon; usually all three unless Auggie let me sleep long enough for the sun to be up and I get to tell the sun good morning. If you can step to the door, listen for a moment to traffic or birds, and catch sight of something moving, you have the beginning already of a prayer of praise, and a pretty darn good day. Thank you God for the ability to walk out into a day of choices, to feel the air sting my face, to smell the neighboring chimney smoke, to watch a bluejay take his breakfast, and to hear quail ruffling up a fence row. I’m able to taste a cup of hot coffee and I know I have the makings of a feast – a feast of blessings with the left-overs alone, not to mention the fat of the calf with which my cup runs over day after day. Family, friends, and fortune much of the world would call excessive, are mine; yours too, I’m guessing. “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23

No, Covid 19 didn’t go anywhere yet. Sadly, prejudice and hatred still thrive. Crime did not surrender to the authorities. I wish these things would change, but we know it will take a whole lot more than eating the right things on the first day of the year, don’t we? Let’s use what we have to make all the change we can. We have a sovereign God Who craves us to seek Him, be in communion with Him, and allow Him to work in our lives to prepare a forever relationship with Him. I believe He will use what we have left in us – He said so – and will make amazing outcomes of us. (Jeremiah 29:11, for one.) I hope making a better me, will enable me to make good changes in the world of needs. So, until the other shoe drops – no, even if it does, I wish for you a beautiful bold new year in which you can use the leftovers to build, or add on to, a wonderful relationship with the great I AM. (Exodus 3:14) It is the best place to start. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13

“Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning, For in You do I trust; Cause me to know the way in which I should walk, For I lift up my soul to You.” Psalm 143:8