My Heart This New Year's Eve

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Long shadows wind themselves over and around our chimney and tree tops as I sit down to write a wee note on this mild last day of the year.

It comes time to wish you a very Happy New Year, and I want to assure you this simple but well known phrase is being offered to you with all the fullness of affection and love that I have in my heart for you at this very moment in time.  To be Happy. Healthy. Well. Whole.

Here are a couple of other thoughts as we ready ourselves to bid goodnight to the old year and welcome in the new one...

First, there's the wonderful quote from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel where Sonny, new hotel proprietor, explains to one of his discontented guests about things not being as expected:

In India, we have a saying: 'Everything will be all right in the end.' So if it's not all right, it is not yet the end.

Didn't someone else say something along similar lines?

For our present troubles are small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! (see 2 Corinthians 4:17)

If it's not all right in your corner of the world at this time, it is not yet the end. That is a hope we carry with us into 2013... our present troubles, even a nation's troubles, are temporary compared to eternity.

For I know the plans I have for you, plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. (see Jeremiah 29:11)

Guardian Angel from a DaySpring note card I own

Second, I want to leave you with the lyrics from an old song Mario Lanza once sang. The words to Guardian Angels have blessed and comforted me on more than one occasion during a rough time in my life. No doubt the piece was written originally to comfort small children when they imagined scary bears in shadowy corners of their rooms at night.

Turns out it's not only small children who need to take comfort in the Psalmist's ancient words that He gives His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. Adults sometimes need big scary bears shoo'd away too.

We can rest safely in His protection -- we receive it the same way we receive any other promise He gives ... with childlike trust.

Guardian angels around my bed
Joining me in my prayers
They hush the shadows when they dance about
They shoo away the bears

Guardian angels to comfort me
If I wake in the night
They gather all my dreams
Their halos are my light

They dry my tears
If I should weep
They tuck me in
They rouse me from my sleep

Guardian angels around my bed
Standing by till I rise
There's one with shining wings that holds my hand
And shows me Paradise

And so... all these words later, my cup of tea is now gone cold, a few crumbs remain on the cake plate, and my heart is at rest. I wish you all the best for 2013 -- may every day be filled with glimpses of heaven in unexpected places.

Hugs and blesses

and an affectionate kiss atop thy head,

Brenda
xox