Wayfaring Stranger

End of year musings

It has become a yearly ritual for me. I spend the week between Christmas and New Years looking back over the past year reviewing what I've learned, how I've changed, and how God has moved in my life. I try to use this review to set goals, albeit rather loose goals, for the new year. I also use this time as a time of praise to God for the good days and the bad days and those days I just survived. I express my deep felt gratitude to him for the changes he has made in my heart and mind and ask him for wisdom in how to apply those changes next year. This ritual has changed a lot over the years. For many years of my life, I ended the year depressed and clueless about the next year. Somewhere along the line, probably one of those wonderful heart and mind changes God made, I decided to start looking for the good things in the year first and then remember the hard times. It makes the process more worthwhile. Keeping a journal has helped me to remember the blessings of the year and make it more likely that I will remember what good came from the difficult times. The Israelites were told on several occasions to place large stones at places where God wanted them to remember what happened and how he worked in their lives. For me, this end of year ritual has become the large stone I carefully place to remember what God has done in my life. I am amazed to discover that as the years go by, the older stones are becoming gold nuggets! How wonderful that God would bless my older years with gold from my past even as he is still working on my present and future! Glory be to God!

posted by Dana @ 2:35 PM