Today is my birthday and if I was going to be really selfish I would want this day to be all about me. I must not be selfish though. Why? The world does not revolve around me. Yes, I am special, God made me and that makes it a true statement but He also made everyone else that has ever lived and who is to live and that makes them just as special.
I think birthdays are our own personal Thanksgiving Day, a day when we look back over the past year and forward at the next. As I wrote my Christmas Letter last night I was able to share just how much I have to be thankful for. Looking back over this last year I can see that the hand of God moved me to do exactly what needed to happen because God knew what was going to happen. I can now see that even in the mist of the down times and I don’t just mean the passing of my mother (there was a lot time in the middle of the year where I really questioned what God’s plan was for the year and even the rest of my life He hand was working.
As I spoke to my dad this morning I commented that modern media is a two edged sword. It raises the expectations of people too high and this will impact on their optimism. For the first time I have some idea of what the next year holds, so many first without my mother but at the same time: Jeremiah 29:11 says “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end” The year ahead is under God’s control.