“A Happy New Year”

May we be the last to wish you “A Happy New Year”. We might add, “A Healthy New Year” in light of the seemingly endless pandemic and the unease it has introduced into our culture. These times are truly a test of our faith and a lesson in where to put our trust.
This is being written as we awakened to a pure, white world, momentarily erased of all that is ugly or dirty in our surroundings. Upon contemplation, we marvel at God’s Creation. It seems unlikely that even a genius among men could make a snowflake – exquisitely beautiful in its infinite forms, transient in existence as the merest change in temperature can cause its disappearance, too delicate to hold in your hand, yet capable of gathering and accumulating and bringing our everyday life and plans completely to a standstill. We can only humbly bow before the Maker of snowflakes.
Of course, January is the time of resolutions. We’re not sure if few people bother any more – we don’t hear as much about them as we used to. True resolutions, though, are very personal. Some folks have bad habits or tendencies that everyone around them wishes would be resolved as we start a new year. But, for most, we know our own weaknesses and hope others haven’t noticed. At the least, though, as Christians, we know that God has noticed. We know that what needs changing is not always something to be removed, but for something to be added. Those sins of omission, rather than those sins of commission. Both types of resolutions require real effort and persistence. Each requires, at the end of each day, a review of how we did for that day. Did we do the wrong thing absent-mindedly? Did we miss an opportunity? Each requires patience, not guilt, not hopelessness, not giving up. It’s a popular source of humor comparing how soon we have broken our resolutions. Broken is almost inevitable if we are trying to change something that has been a part of our everyday life for a while. “Broken”, however, should not be translated “surrender.”
As we get 2022 underway, we’re serving up a big toast of encouragement to everyone to keep working toward the perfection that God sets before us through the earthly life of our Lord, Jesus Christ.                                    Viginia
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12: