Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I’m hoping that sometime soon I’ll stop writing 2010 on my checks since the new year is now several weeks old!

I always enjoy reading, watching and listening to the various highlights of the past year that appear before the calendar year ends. Top news stories, best movies, famous people who have died, most important entertainment stories, most influential people, top athletic accomplishments … the list of lists seems to get longer each year as the media plays to our keen interest in remembering, listing and cataloging people and events.

These end of the year “recaps” cause me to reflect on several questions, including …

How is it possible that another year has passed by so quickly? God keeps the earth rotating at the same rate year after year, but it seems each year passes more quickly than the year before. As a kid, a year seemed like a lifetime. Now a year seems more like a month. It is a blessing to have a very busy and fulfilling schedule that makes hours and days fly by. But, do you ever wish like I do that there were more “slow” days when the clock operates in slow motion and a day takes a long time to pass?

Did all of these things really happen in the past year? Isn’t it amazing how much goes on in the course of a year? I’m always surprised at the number of major events and stories I hear or read about for the first time when they show up on an end-of-year list. I’m similarly surprised by how quickly even major events seem to fade from my memory. How can it be that the gulf oil spill happened just months ago … seems like old news already.

What didn’t make the list? Highlights of important events and activities, whether national or international in scope, recounted in our annual Christmas letters are interesting. But for all of us, the hours in a year are filled mainly with the daily joys, challenges, accomplishments and struggles each of us experience that would never qualify as highlights. John Lennon’s reminder that life is what happens when we’re busy making other plans rings true. How can I take more care to appreciate the “daily bread” God provides each day in the people, places, decisions and circumstances that make life so rich and worth living?

What will the new year bring? Fast on the heals of last year’s highlights come the predictions for the new year. What stories will unfold? What will be the hot new electronic gadgets? How will the economy perform? Not surprisingly, most of those who love to share their predictions don’t seem as anxious at year’s end to talk about how accurate they were. It is part of our human condition, I suppose, to wonder what plans the Lord has for us. Thankfully, we take comfort in the words of Jeremiah 29:11 and the knowledge that God’s plan, however it unfolds, is intended to bring hope and an eternal future!

God willing, through the new health and human care activities seeded by Wheat Ridge Ministries during the year ahead, this message of hope and a future will be carried to thousands of people whose lives will be impacted as they experience wellness of body, mind and spirit. Please keep these people, as well as the inspired leaders of the new ministries that serve them, in your prayers.

Armed with your strong support, encouragement and prayers, I predict that 2011, whether it seems to fly by or not, will be another great year to celebrate God’s grace by planting seeds of health and hope in the name of our healing Christ!