There is something glittering about the New Year—other than the ball in Times Square, that is. Right now, as I look out my window, the ground is still littered with broken branches from our Christmas Day ice storm. Surviving limbs and twigs reach to the sky like fingers, poised and frozen, waiting to catch the warming rays of spring. I love that in our seasons, our calendar—even in the kitchen scraps I toss onto the compost heap—God has hidden an element of His story: Endings, and even death, give way to life.
This year has marked painful endings and grateful beginnings for our family. 2012 will stay with me as the year I said a tearful, final farewell to my dad, who now waits for me with our granddaughter, Molly, and a host of others we love in the place of new life called Heaven. From there I believe he watched his newest great-granddaughter, Rainey, take her first breath here on earth. I have hope both in death and in life because Christmas Day and Resurrection Day together announce victory.
God is writing a grand and glorious story in which we each have a part. Though His script often baffles me, I have learned He always has a multitude of purposes at work that I cannot see and will never know. Despite our own personal storms, the disturbing shootings of the last year, and other tragedies around the world, I must and will cling to God’s promises for 2013. And that alone is the reason for the glitter of a new year. Christmas anticipation is over but New Year anticipation has just begun. And it is good.
2013 is an opportunity for each of us to seek His renewal. Rather than a set of self-centered goals, this year I find myself wondering what His resolutions for me would be! What purposes of His will I see at work. No matter how I feel about them, bewildered or exultant, I’m thankful He’ll be with me always tending my soul with His love.
May you marvel at the end of 2013 over all He has done in and for you!
