"CHANGE"-2010I just had to l augh as I'm viewing this picture taken from our home while the grass was still green! This reason it's funny is because the view outside our window is beautifully white and the theme of this blog is "change"!!! Let's see if I take this theme to heart?
As the calendar pages of 2009 are flipping rapidly to a close, I am reminded of a graduation speech I heard titled, "change". It was an unprecidented 15 minutes in length and thought-provoking! Thought-provoking because as a college graduate I rather thought I had arrived! His point was not to stagnate in a rut, but always be willing to take on new challenges. A rut after all is a grave with both ends knocked out!
Well, that took the breath out of me as it does now facing 2010! In this context of "change" I'm challenged to continue to be accountable to my husband and to one or several good friends. I was impacted with the necessity of this again when I read an article titled, "Mistakes were made" by Mindy Belz (World Magazine, January 2010 issue). She sites 4 examples of political figures who used the phrase, "mistakes were made" to admit error while dodging blame. William Schneider, a political consultant calls it "the past exonerative"!!! Mindy goes on to lament the many "mistakes" she and others have made in journalism. She is thankful for readers who call the journalists to accountability, for an active voice to admit them, and for Jesus Christ who rescues her from the very human nature from which they spring. In the Christian life this is how the path to new life begins. Mindy continues, "In the life of a magazine it is how we face a new year with hope." I would add, in the Christian life of "change" it too is how we face a new year with hope.
PUP (People
Under Pressure)
I've been given a vacation from the chemo. I'm very thankful
for this hiatus from poison! I'm also thankful that chemo is available and for a bazillion other blessings in the midst of it all, "we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope." Romans 5:3,4
The good news is that our hope is not in vain, for God did what
none of us would or could do: "God shows His love for us
in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
Do you have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ because you have repented and received Him as your personal Saviour?
For 2010 this is my prayer, "I pray that God the source of hope, will fill you (and I) completely with joy and peace because you (and I) trust in Him." Romans 15:13
