Last Day of 2011

Counting down the minutes until 2012... The night is clear, brimming over with stars. Neighborhoods in all directions are sending off celebration fireworks, stealing "the silence of immensity" and turning it into a chaos of cluttered color. 

When I put my new calendar on the wall, I look back on the old calendar, looking at all the birthdays, the Bible studies, the movie nights, the piano lessons, and I see moments and faces and smiles. I remember laughter and pain and anxiety and happiness. I look at all the days of things that we do, and I think, "So this is a year. This is all that goes into one single year of our lives." And as cliche as it seems to say, the new calendar is blank, the days unwritten. Who knows all the joy and sorrow that will come. It is like starting a new book, smelling the beautiful pages and wondering how the story will unfold. 

This afternoon, we made an adventure along the sea cliffs. For a change, the day was sunny and blue-skied. And the ocean... was the perfection of deep tangible color. And despite the troubles of day-to-day life, I felt happy to be on the edge of the sea, in the midst of God's creation, enjoying the company of some of my dearest friends. There's a reason we don't know the future. We are meant to live today, to remember the past, and to hope for the future. Here's to a New Year, given by God for His glory and our enjoyment.