Happy New Year

It is always hard to believe when we swap the calendar over to different year. The older I get the faster the calendar pages seem to turn. I was warned of this phenomenon for most of my life and then when kids became a part of my life it seemed like it really sped up. 2023 found one of my kids graduating from high school. He was only a few years old when we moved to Highland Park Church of Christ what seemed like on a few years ago—but was actually 15 1/2 years ago. I don’t have toddlers in my home anymore—they are all growing up and doing so much too fast.

However, I continue to look back at each passing year and can’t help but count my blessings. Life has it struggles and trials but at the end of the day…and in this case the end of the year…I realize there are many things for which to be thankful. As the new year begins I realize that in 12 months we will look back and say many of the same things. There will have been blessings and there will have been heartaches.

Until the Lord comes back that cycle will continue. We lost good people in 2023. We will lose good people in 2024. We welcomed some precious babies in 2023. We will welcome some precious babies in 2024. We had blessings in 2023. We will have blessings in 2024. We had struggles in 2023. We will have struggles in 2024.

As each year brings seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, as well as day and night (Genesis 8:22) so will there be good and bad times. Yet, in Christ even the struggles can be cause for rejoicing. “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4).

So as you come into the New Year I wish for you and your family to have blessings without number for all of 2024. I pray that good things are plentiful. But I also pray that in the struggles that you face, that you can do so with the mind that even in those struggles there are lessons to be learned and growth that can take place. You may never know on this side of eternity the meaning of all that you endure, but you can know that in all things God works it out for the good of those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).

“Many things about tomorrow I don’t seem to understand, but I know who holds tomorrow and I know who holds my hand” (Ira Stanphill).

Ben