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A New Year Reflection
A blessed New Year to you all!
The old year has given way to the new and hopefully the business and activity of making preparation for Christmas has given way to peace and calm and a time of relaxation. (I am sure there are exceptions among you.) In years gone by I remember snow at this time of year, but these days that is far less likely. Looking out on a carpet of fresh snow can bring an air of stillness, not only to the world outside, but an inner stillness, if only for a short time.
Some people make new year resolutions. I have done in the past, but now I find that resolutions are best made carefully and when events make it appropriate. I feel this is when we are probably better able to take on board new ideas, or new ways of doing things, and then stick to them.
This month the advertisement for a new incumbent will be published in the Church Times. So the process of finding Geoffrey’s successor is beginning. For many it seems to have been a long delay before trying to appoint someone to lead us, but the church is in good heart and people are pulling together.
As I write preparations for the annual Carol and Crib Services are being made and people are working together to make sure they will be good occasions. On behalf of everyone attending these services may I take this opportunity to thank all who have helped with the preparations.
As we face 2007, we have the encouragement of the lengthening days and warmer weather around the corner. Very soon snowdrops and winter aconite will show us their beauty and help us focus on the garden and its new season just beginning. There will be seeds to sow and then watch and nurture as the seedlings grow into plants developing towards maturity. Both flowers and vegetables will be maturing for our enjoyment, and/or consumption.
In church we have, once again, celebrated the birth of Jesus, God made man. Like each of us, he entered this world as a baby. He needed feeding and nurturing just as our own children do. Like our children, Jesus did not remain a baby. He grew up. If he had not done so, he would not have been able to teach or preach the people in the Holy Land. He would not have been able to heal their sick or show them how to live. It is this Jesus, as well as the baby Jesus that we should be worshipping as our Saviour. Greater things have been done in his name because he grew up. Because of his obedience to His Father’s will, Jesus became a servant king, even to the point of giving himself up to death, because that was his Father’s will. If we make any resolutions at this time of year, perhaps they should be to follow Jesus more closely and learn more about what he said and did while in human form.
When we follow Jesus, we may like to think life will be plain sailing, but it isn’t always. In fact it can be more difficult. If God willed that his Son suffer and die for us, then why should we expect an easy life? What God does promise, is that he will be with us always. He will help us through the good times and the difficult ones. The famous Footprints poem by Margaret Fishback Powers, tells of God walking along the beach with the author, in a dream. Scenes from her life flashed before her, but what puzzled her was that at the most difficult times in her life there was only one set of footprints. She thought those were the times her Lord had left her. In fact, they were the times when he carried her. God is with us at all times. Let us try hard to converse with him more in the coming year - and welcome him more closely into our lives.
Linda
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