There is still a bag of wrapping paper and boxes cluttering my floor, table and chairs stacked neatly against the wall and a tree that looks barren with no gifts underneath......I guess this means Christmas 2008 is over.
Christmas this year for me was a great one!! If you can imagine I had 8 people for dinner in a small one bedroom apartment. I had to be creative in placement of furniture; one piece is in my bedroom and other piece was moved to the storage room. It is amazing actually how much space can be created with the manouvering of a few pieces of furniture!
It is a blessing to spend Christmas with family. I did miss my brothers and sister in-law though as this years it was not possible for them to join us. Thankfully we have wonderful technology which allowed a first for me this year was to open gifts via a web cam with Derek my brother in Toronto. Dave and Jenny live on the eastern shores in New Foundland so when we called them they were getting ready to eat and we had just finished opening gifts. Funny how a time change of 4.5hrs puts each one of us at a different point of our day.
I did learn a few things this Christmas; to cherish your family as God gave them to you, live each day with purpose, be flexible, don't eat too much there will not be a shortage of food, only satisfy your sweet tooth don't needlessly indulge it, take time to reflect, don't miss opportunities to say kind words into someone else's life, and to bite your tounge every now and then it is God's reminder of how hurtful those words could have been if spoken.
I am looking forward to 2009 however I admit I have no expectations of what I would like to see or happen in the upcoming year. Sure I have a goal to loose another 30-50 pounds in the next 12 months, I will strive to be the best at my job, but those are no brainer goals or expectations I will set for myself. The one that is harder to work towards is to see God in everyday of my life, to follow His path that is set before me, to spend quality quiet time actively reading His word and staying still and quiet long enough to hear Him speak.
I am going to embrace 2009 even though I have no idea what it holds!
I want to encourage and challenge you to do the same. 2009 is a blank calendar of events that you don't even know about, it could hold days of opportunities, chance meetings of old friends and new aquaintances. There will be vacation time scheduled with excited anticipation of it happening. Birthdays will roll by giving you chances to bless those special people in your life and your birthday is your day to celebrate who you are!
I know you can't see this....but as I old up my glass and clink it against yours; a toast to 2009 would be a year full of God's blessings, mercy and grace. A year where you fall in love all over again with life. A year filled with God moments and discovery.
Cheers 2009 I await your arrival.
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