encore

So I guess I lied. One more post to round out the year before the blog goes into hibernation for the first month of 2012.

I'm sitting here with 45 minutes left in 2011, the whole house is fast asleep, I can hear fireworks somewhere in the distance, and I should be packing for our move in 36 hours. But here I sit, reflecting on a year gone by.

Without a doubt, my thirtieth year on this earth was the most stressful and traumatic I've ever experienced. Yet as I come to the end of it, I can't help but think to myself, "It could've been worse." Really. It could have been so much worse.

My husband said to me yesterday, "I have no idea where 2011 went." I said, "I do. America."

For me, for the first six months of the year, my mind was in America, worrying about my mom's health and trying to figure out a way to get there. Months seven and eight were spent in America. In the six weeks that followed after our return to South Africa, it was plain to everyone that my mind and heart had not boarded the plane. Back to America with what remained of me at the end of September and into October. But again, not all of me came back on the plane. So here I am, at least partially, at the last day of December, and I know where the year went.

But again: It could've been so much worse. As much as I moan and complain about the aches and the pain, I have much to be grateful for.

And as that famous story 'Footprints' so beautifully portrays, the Lord certainly did carry me through the toughest days, weeks and months.

Psalm 121:5 comes to mind: 'The Lord watches over you; the Lord is a shade at your right hand."

And as I went to biblegateway.com to look up the verse above, Isaiah 43:16, 18-19 came onto the screen as the verse of the day. Very appropriate way to close the year and start afresh with a new one:

“This is what the LORD says— he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

Amen.