Happy New Year!

We've reached a new milestone. We've made it through another year and are headed into 2019. As I look back over the last year, I see many happy moments and milestones in my own life. In 2018, I got my driver's license, hit my one year anniversary at my job, and began volunteering for the Literacy Council. I can also see sad, stressful, and bad things that happened in 2018. I had to help my friends through hardships that broke my heart with theirs, I went through some seriously rocky ground in my faith, and I spent the majority of August feeling sick. I see every moment of my past year, and I remember how wonderful the happy moments were and how awful I felt in the sad ones. I know I will remember some of 2018's moments for a long time to come.

Moments shape our lives. They impact us while we're going through them and we remember them later. Everything we go through will affect our futures and, even if we've forgotten a moment, it will resurface later in our lives. As we move into a new year, carrying last year's moments in the back of our minds while we look forward to new adventures to come, and as we wait for new moments, let's remember one thing. Every year - bad or good, no matter the moments we go through - God will always be with us. God gave us this new year, he led us through the last one, he sees us all the time, looks after our moments, and will be with us always.

As we walk into a new year, let's thank God for the moments we've had in 2018 and for the ones that we will have in 2019. God's got us; he will be ever faithful and he will be with us in 2019.

Happy New Year, everyone!!!


Photo Credit: Times Now

Spring Has Come

The breeze is warm again; the clouds are white and fluffy. I can hear the light cooing of the mourning dove perched in the backyard tree. The grass is standing straight, and it is turning green; the flowers of the field are turning their fresh petals towards the sun and opening, revealing the bright colors inside.

I fling open the upstairs windows. I pull the blinds from the glass, and I can smell the scent of fresh cut grass mixed with clean linen. From the upstairs window, I can see the surrounding trees, each covered in its own blanket of fresh green leaves. In between the new shoots I can see many different birds - doves, robins, and bluejays - each one singing its cheerful tune, welcoming back the green trees and lawn.

The sky is the most wonderful shade of light blue, the color we see after a heavy downpour. It looks new and clean, filled with clouds that look like cotton candy. If I could lift up my hand and touch those clouds, they would be as soft as silk, and as my fingers passed through the billows, they might even sparkle a bit in the bright new sun.

The sunlight covers everything, filling every corner of the world with a shimmer of hope and new life. It warms the grass and paints the trees in a golden light special to this time of year. The children can play again; no longer are they confined to the four walls of the house. They run barefoot through the tall grass, throwing their warm sweaters into the air and shreiking for joy that freedom from the awful itchy things has finally come. The snows of winter have gone away, melted into the ground to water the leaf-sprouting trees. The cold December wind has been blown away by the warm breezes of May, and the grey sky of January has faded into a gorgeous blue satin.

Winter is gone, life has begun again. Spring has come.