Tonight we come to the end of another year.  We all have our traditions and rituals that we partake in as we mark this passage of time.  One such practice my husband and I have taken part in over the years was to do our own year in review.  Perhaps you’ve engaged in this process of thinking back over the highs and lows of the year.  Talking about what the best parts were.  Remembering which were the hardest moments. Deciding overall if it was a good year or a bad year.

There were some years where we would come to the last minutes and admit that we would be glad for that ball to drop.  Maybe things had happened that we were just ready to be behind us.  We would openly hope for a different year, a better year.  Sometimes we were practically kicking the past to the curb and ready to grab onto some new story that lay ahead.

But the more years that lie behind me, the more I realize we can’t kick any parts of our story to the curb, whether they were pleasant to live through or not.  

For in the end, the bad moments are as much a part of our story as the good ones and all of them have brought us to the place we are right now.  And like it or not, that is the only place we have to stand, where we are right now.  So I guess we might as well claim it.

With these new thoughts in my mind, I think I’ll just skip the year in review ritual tonight.  I know what happened, I lived it.  Maybe I can just skip the rankings and labelings and just accept it all as a part of what makes me who I am.  Maybe I can be right where I am in this moment.

And in this moment, I might as well enjoy the treat of a low key evening out with my husband.  We may or may not stay awake till midnight, but we’ll enjoy a few stolen moments together while we can.  And then maybe I’ll kiss those sleeping children too.  For they certainly make each moment, each year a little lighter, a bit sweeter.

As that ball drops tonight, I think I’ll just trust to the new year to take me where it will.  For life and God do have ways of taking all that has been a part of our story and using both the good and the bad to take us to places that we never dreamed we could go.  So I might as well stop fretting and just make the most of my ride.

So whether your year was delightful or difficult, wonderful or wearying, I hope you are able to claim it as your own.  And as you look forward into the unknown of what lies before you, rest in the knowledge that all of it will eventually find blessing in the hands of The One who is beyond even the bounds of time.

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