Blessings of the Newborn Year

When a baby is born, parents are filled with enormous hope for the child’s future. It’s a new beginning with the promise of boundless opportunity. We hold the little one close and vow to do all we can to help this new child of God blossom and grow. And like God’s gift of a new life, every January we are given the gift of a newly birthed year. Especially today when the times feel chaotic and so very uncertain, this new beginning feels a bit like a miracle – an often taken-for-granted miracle. There was no guarantee it would even arrive. But here it is, demanding our attention and inspiring us to make new promises, or maybe make old promises anew. Maybe your promise list includes spending time with friends or taking more walks outdoors. Maybe you hope to find ways to show kindness and gentleness in a world that needs it so desperately.  Perhaps you are looking for the strength to forgive.  So much opportunity is ahead of us to fill our hearts and imaginations with vows and hopes of the deepest kind. So, usher in this new year with all the majesty and fearlessness it deserves and rest in the sure knowledge that you are a precious, honored, loved child of God created for God’s glory.   (Isaiah 43:4,7)

And I said to the one who stood at the gate of the year, “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the Unknown.” And he replied, “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”     From “Seven Sacred Pauses” by Macrina Wiederkehr  

Francie Winslow