To The End Of 2008

This morning's devotional was spot-on for the final day of 2008.  Who knows what next year will bring?  

I can't even imagine.

But here's where I hope to focus, from Thomas Merton's Thoughts In Solitude (and what a concept that is, for a girl like me.....):

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. - Thomas Merton

"Trust you always."  I hope this for you; I hope this for me.  For my family, for my individual children.  My friends.  My PCC community.  And I choose to cling to this notion that "working out our salvation with fear and trembling" will really show us that it is God who works in us "to will and act according to his good purpose" (Philipians 2.12-13)

If I didn't believe I had that kind of almighty, power-filled help, I don't know that I could make it.

Whatever your fears, whatever your circumstances, I hope you catch a glimpse of the great leading mercy of God - today, as we end one year, and tomorrow, as we begin another.

And every day beyond.

Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God's energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.  Do everything readily and cheerfully—no bickering, no second-guessing allowed! Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Philipians 2.12-13, The Message