Year End Thoughts

As the year comes to a close, I pause to reflect how quickly this year passed.  So much has happened over the year.  Personally, my family has like most families had many difficulties and triumphs.  We've experienced illnesses, surgeries, and healed from some of them.  We gained a new four-legged family member and watched 2 others  decline due to old age.   We also learned of the joy of our granddaughter carrying her first child.  We've cried many tears, spent hours in prayer, smiled and laughed often, and rejoiced a time or two with great joy. 

The Spring was warm, and I was able to cut and haul home six cords of wood in preparation for winter.  It was the first time all our firewood was in before Fall.  Then Summer found us tearing down an old building from the 1940s to recycle into a shed for my son to work on his mechanical dreams.   I also staked out new mining claims and climbed many peaks to set the posts. Autumn gave way to my daughter's senior year of high school.  It was 13 years ago we walked into kindergarten classes; yet is seems like almost yesterday.  Now, Winter's dark days are spent indoors with homework, writing, and editing.  The solstice has passed, and the days are finally growing longer, if only by seconds each day. 

Overall, it was a good year.  A year with much to be thankful.  It was also a difficult year, with times of struggle.  It was a year like many others before it and many others to come.  Time brings events where we laugh, mourn, learn, hope, pray, and even celebrate.  Through it all, with each new day before me, I prove God's word to be true. 

 It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22-23