Happy New Year
May I wish all of you a happy new year for 2018. I was in bed and asleep before the change of the clock hit midnight and we arrived in 2018. As we awoke this morning it was to something rather different than what many people experienced of fireworks illuminating the night skies and the explosion of noise. It was to the sound and display of being in the middle of an electrical storm. The lightning was blanket and flashing across the whole black sky. The clouds lighting up as though someone is flicking the Big Light Switch! Its frequency was less than a minute between enormous flashes. The rain beating down heavily, the wind howling and racing around, bending the trees to near giving up and then, the rolls of thunder across the morning storm overhead, sounding like the low clouds were being cracked by a heavy roller.
I decided to get up and make sure everything was unplugged downstairs. These heavy electrical storms have a habit of striking the electricity supplies and causing surges through the system. Nothing serious, but it is just better to disconnect appliances, so off I go downstairs, on my own. Bertie, bless him, always gets up with me, always goes to bed with me, always has done since I have had him. Well, he decided it may be better if I went down by myself and he would make sure that his nice warm bed didn’t get taken up by the storm, so that is where he stayed, curled up and refused to budge until later.
After about an hour the storm dissipated, the lightning passed, the thunder ceased, the wind calmed and the rain eased and Bertie decided it was then breakfast time, so he would get up. Down the stairs he came, rather sheepishly I might add, so I tried to capture the moment, knowing of the many times throughout my life, that for one reason or another, there has been some self-inflicted reason for guilt to weigh me down and punish me before a word is spoken.
I thought also of the many people whom would have made resolutions all over the world, only to have broken them already, as the clock struck twelve. They were already engaging in the very thing that they had been building up to get rid out of their life for a fresh start in 2018. The new hope for the coming year broken like pottery already.
But there is hope. For with God, His mercies are new every day, all we have to do is go to Him, and confess our sin, then He is just. With God, there is always hope, there is no need to cover our sins with guilt and shame, the scripture in 1 John 1:19 tells us;
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Isn’t God amazing, that we don’t have to wait until next year or any specific day for a fresh start?
Later today we went for a long walk through the woods at ‘Gorges du Corong,’ miles and miles of forestry pathways and plenty of fresh air.
Today is just one of the 365 days of this year, for me, I hope and I pray that I can be a better servant for the kingdom of God.
Happy New Year and God Bless