Hello 2023!

The year 2022 is over and a new year, as it always does, holds in it potential and possibility.   

On New Year’s Eve, after watching the ball drop in Times Square from the comfort of our friends’ home, we moved to the dining room table.  As we sat around the table our host asked the question, which has become our yearly tradition,  “So, what will this New Year bring?”

This year, unlike other years when I excitedly instigate the conversation, I held back.  While others in our party were sharing dreams and hopes… I secretly hoped they would bypass me this year.  2021 and 2022 were a difficult years for me.  Things I had hoped to do, places I wanted to go, people I wanted to see, just didn’t happen.  And after the last few years, I was afraid to utter my hopes for fear they would only be dashed by another pandemic or plague of locusts or Lord only knows what!

It was when all eyes turned to me that I realized that this year my hope was not about accomplishing a task or goal but rather pursuing a state of being. My hope for 2023 is to be content in all areas of my life. And to be hopeful and confident that the ONE that I serve will help me navigate whatever this year brings.

I will move into 2023 with confidence and excitement because God was with us in 2022, (and 2021) just as God has from the beginning, and God will be there until the end.

Immanuel, God with us, is a promise that endures.

So goodbye 2022, hello 2023!

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to God and God will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6.