Thoughts on the New Year....

So I’m at home. We’ve survived the first Christmas without Dad, and really, he would have had a ball. We gathered as family at the house in Concord, and we celebrated Christmas. Nothing maudlin or sad. My brother in law proposed a wonderful toast.

We’ve also gone through some more of Dad’s personal effects, and for those who know me, if you think I’m a packrat, I have nothing on him. We’re finding stuff none of us knew he had, including a doctorate that wasn’t on his wall.

But this isn’t about that. Not really. It’s about thinking of what will come in the new year.

Now, I firmly believe that Spring is the time to make new commitments. January, post Christmas, is the wrong time of the year to make changes in your life. Dieting after a month of bingeing on holiday cookies, for example, makes sense. But if you want to make a permanent lifestyle change to keep that weight off for good, January is not that month. Everything is dead in winter.

What will happen this coming year? Only the Almighty knows for sure. I can make plans, but there’s no promises that any of it will come to pass. I am hoping to wrap up my third doctorate this coming year. I’d like to get down around 180 pounds and get in decent shape, so when I go to Kona in August I’ll look good in my surf shorts. (Not to mention living better and potentially longer.) I’d like to get in better shape financially...but then, who wouldn’t?

The gist of all this is this: We just celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ, maker of Heaven and Earth. Literally, only He knows what the year to come will bring. Make plans, but trust Jesus to guide and shape your year.

May you all have a Blessed and Prosperous New Year.

Enough for now.

(Posted 12/29/08)