Happy New Year!

I don’t know about you, but for me, this time of year is always bittersweet.  The closing of one year and the beginning of another is both happy and sad at the same time. 

As the previous year closes, I can’t help but take stock in what has transpired over the last twelve months. 

Just like in years past, I was given a remarkable gift.  In fact, not just one gift but 365 of them! What did I do with all those gifts?  Did I use them to their fullest?  Or did I squander them because I believed I would always have more of them to make up for any ones wasted.

 

When I look back and consider all that happened in my life this past year I, and all of us really, need to remember one thing. Life is not about me and it’s not about you. It’s not about the material possessions we have or we don’t have. It’s not about our health, wealth, happiness or lack of.  

Life is not about us. It’s about the One who created us. The One, “who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth.” (Isaiah 51:13) The One in whose book holds the number of our days. (Psalm 139:16)

And what does our Lord ask us to do with these numbered gifts? He tells us Himself: Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)

So did I fill my 365 gift-days with love for my Creator and fellow man? Hopefully more so than not. But this new year brings with it another opportunity to try again! To take each day as it comes, to not take it for granted but treat it as the gift that it is.  

A gift given to receive God’s love and to give love in return. To lay down self and put on Christ. To press deeper into God through every happy, sad, difficult, joyful, painful, uneventful, wonder-filled day that lies ahead.

Dina Pugh