The Silver Lining

Someone once told me that you don't drive a car looking in the rear-view mirror, you've got to keep LOOKING FORWARD! I am most definitely looking forward to starting a new year -- this past one has been a long strange ride. Do you prepare New Year's Resolutions?  I remember doing them as a child, writing on blue-lined notebook paper things like "Be kind," or "Be nicer to my sister."  I suppose I managed to keep those as well as a child could.  Hmm.  I will have to ask my sister.... As I grew older, the resolutions became more specific, I guess you'd say... like "Lose weight" and "Get more exercise" and "Get control of spending."  I can tell you for sure, they lasted usually about two weeks before I'd give up on them. Since "Resolutions" seemed like an instant recipe for failure, I eventually decided to ditch making them. Then a few years ago, I re-invented the process for myself. I recently ha...

Wow…December 31 st already. So we’re perched here, teetering at the edge of good-bye to another year. It seems to me that the seasons change quicker, the days are shorter, and the years roll by much faster than they used to. Some years are better, even easier than others. I recall a few years in which I was flat-out delighted to see December 31 finally arrive. Those were the years that brought the pain of difficult decisions, separation and divorce, deaths of loved ones and friends, or just plain “hard times.” They left me eager for a new start, a new beginning, a new year. But 2010--for the most part--has been very good to me. I’ve laughed a lot this year, and that is always good! At our house, 2010 was The Year of the Kitchen and Back Porch . And for a couple of do-it-yourself-ers, I think we did a pretty darn good job! Little by little, we’re seeing this neat old house develop into Home, Sweet Home. David and I traveled a bit, spending a couple of w...

Another year winds to a close, a new one awaits. I can’t say I’m sorry that 2008 is ending. For me, it’s been a bittersweet year, full of emotional ups and downs. I had the chance to return to Ghana this summer, for the first time in 3 years. And I was able to share Ghana with someone who loved me enough to go with me, my husband David. That was a wonderful “high spot” in the year for me. At the other end of the spectrum, I lost my grandmother Eula Belle. She was a guiding force in my whole life, one who always encouraged and supported me, one who always managed to make me laugh. I’ll miss her for the rest of my life. There have been other events of the year. Some have made me laugh, some have encouraged me. Some have left deep gashes, wounding the soul, leaving rough scars. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about the gashes and scars, that I don’t pray for the situations and people. But as I grow older, I realize that sometimes God uses the worst pains in our...