Happy New Year!

Well, in 2019 I wrote fewer blog posts than I've written since 2010.  Perhaps that is a good thing.

Actually, I don't know if it was good for me, personally.  People adopt various therapies to help them cope.  I blog, sorting through my feelings, often wrestling my thoughts from the depths of despair to a plane where I can remind myself to hope in the Lord.  Maybe this should not be a public exercise, and yet, I do not think it is bad, as long as I tread carefully and protect people's privacy.

Our move to North Carolina dovetailed with a family medical crisis involving a little baby.  Between the two, I found myself unable to focus on blogging.  The baby is stable now.  As they often say this time of year : "We don't know what the future holds, but we know Who holds the future."  This could be seen as a silly, trite platitude, but in the end, it's true, whether you embrace it or scoff at it.  Well, it might not be true for those who do not know Jesus, because they don't know the One who holds the future.  We must pray that they will come to know Him, and that His image can be adequately reflected through our lives, so they can see how He is wonderful and worthy.

He is worthy of our faith in His ability to handle the future with compassion for His creation.

The past few years, I have picked a word for the new year, a word to work on, to study, to ponder.  I will not belabor this post with my past years' words, but if you are curious you can look back at them through this link.

This year is the most unprepared I have ever been to pick a word.  Some years, I've had my next word selected months in advance.  Today we enjoyed (as we have for the past two weeks) winter holidays in mild weather.  We walked in the park in the sun.  It was lovely.  I walked in my sneakers, crunching brown leaves and pine needles, smelling the aroma of pine as it rose like a dream from the ground.

On December 11, when I saw the full moon hovering gloriously between and above the bare treetops, I realized that Christmas would be near the new moon this year, and very dark.  I did not realize that Christmas would be smack on the new moon, but in fact, it was.  Do you ever see the new moon?  I never do, never think to look for it.

Leading up to December 11, when the moon was waxing, one evening I was driving home, looking up from the road at where the moon lay above leafless branches like a lazy slice of mandarin orange, reclining low in the black, black sky.  The smell of pine rose from the forest along the side of the road, a forest that is being cleared for roads and houses and thus emanates the scent of bleeding evergreens, crushed and beautiful in the mild winter air.

Progress, nature, beauty, night sky, country road, people, property, business opportunities, all tumbling past my car as I sped along towards home.  I wanted to write about it then.  I tried to capture the images and feelings in my head, encode with words and memorize, hold on, protect within the cup of my mind so I could record the experience at some point.  I fear I have not remembered to its best advantage, but I salvaged something of it.  It seemed important, although I cannot tell why.

I thought all day about what my word or words for 2020 might be.  I have come up with three possibilities, but I'm not sure where I will go from here.  Like the waxing moon in early December, these three words need to be written down, remembered and made available for consideration, for further pondering until a decision can be reached.

Abide:  I need to abide in Christ and I need to remember that the Spirit of Christ abides in me.  This is fundamental, paramount.  There is no sanctification, no growth, no life apart from this.

Compassion:  In all of the hullabaloo these days over Emotional Intelligence, I would like to focus on compassion, true compassion, God-fueled compassion.  Compassion is not my strong suit, I don't think, although sometimes I have a secret hope that maybe I have some compassion like the Tin Man's from The Wizard of Oz--the way he thought he needed a heart, and then he discovered that he had one all along.  I'm sure that is self-aggrandizing, and I am embarrassed to write it down, but it is a true secret hope nonetheless.  It isn't self-aggrandizing if I realize that the compassion I need is in me because Christ is in me, and it isn't me, but yet by the power of God it is part of me.

Vision:  With a year numbered 2020, how can you avoid thinking about vision (20/20)?  My prayer is for God to pour out a great healing of spiritual blindness and grant clear spiritual vision to men and women far and wide.  We all need Him desperately.  We all, every one of us, have so much to learn.  May He be our light, our wisdom, our illumination.

Which of these words shall I use?

I will try to decide soon.  2020 is already here, after all.