What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

Well - here we are on the brink of another year. I just read my New Year's post from 2008. There have been some changes since that day. Here are a few:
Wedding #1 - Chris & Jana, June 5, 2010
Baby #2 - Adeline Rose, July 12, 2010
Wedding #2 - Tricia & Bobby, August 21, 2010
Ending of David's teaching career #2 in Onalaska, Washington.
Beginning of David's teaching career #3 in Rainier, Oregon.

Some changes, but so many things stay the same. I'm still in a job that alternately fulfills and frustrates me. (I suppose that could be said of any job...) I am still wishing and hoping for something "new". A new job, new house, new town... Yet at the same time a realistic look at those desires produces a nameless fear. I know (translate: control) the downsides of the old. Who knows what "new" might bring? So I stay. Some days I feel that it's the right thing - even the "spiritual" thing to do. My word for 2012 is FAITHFUL. I want to rest in God's faithfulness and to be found faithful no matter where I am or what I'm doing. I have some things to finish. Papers. Projects. A degree. A life. At the end of it all I want my life to count. Isn't that what everyone wants? To make a difference. To matter. To be faithful.

I received a beautiful gift from some dear friends for my birthday this year. Words of affirmation from dear sisters in Christ to read, re-read and cherish on the days when I feel insignificant, unimportant and worthless. I know my life matters to these dear ones. So why then do I still feel this empty space, this longing for...something?

My head tells me what I've told others. That space is for God alone. Fill it with His presence. Fill it with faith. Fill it with gratitude. Yes. I know. These things I will do with varying degrees of success because I know in my heart that they are right. Still the ache lingers.

Maybe I'm longing for something that will never be completely filled here. Maybe the longing is for the day when He will make all things new. Maybe the ache is a gift that keeps me reaching for Him - reaching for that day and not really expecting it to be filled here and now.

So, what I'm doing this New Year's Eve of 2011 is reflecting, planning, hoping and praying. Looking forward to a new baby - a little boy who promises to bring hope to a family that has been wracked by tragedy. Baby Caleb - may you be like your namesake - strong, courageous, a leader, faith-filled and faithful. Looking forward to all the beautiful, unexpected, hard, good, wonderful, terrible, breathtaking, heartbreaking, frustrating, fulfilling and God-orchestrated events, thoughts and feelings of a new year. I know He is with me and that makes the ache tolerable.

In Its Time

Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Just returned from a short visit with my son Chris and his new bride Jana. It actually ended up being a mini family reunion, with everyone gathering in Pasco except son Andy and his sweet family. Thank goodness for Skype!

Had lots of time to think on the long drive home. I found myself rejoicing in God's good timing. Who could have ever put the events of the last couple of years together except God? Another beautiful granddaughter, a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law added to our family all in the space of a few short months. Yet there were times in the last ten years or so that I despaired any of that happening. Timing. It's all in God's good timing. He truly has made everything beautiful in its time.

Though Solomon became a cynical old man yet, he acknowledges that God has everything planned - it's all in his time. And, that he has put a longing for eternity in our hearts. No matter how discouraging life seems, no matter how distant our hopes and dreams; we long for a time when his kingdom will come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven - Eden reborn.