The morning news shows are all wrapping up the week with year-end reviews of trends and news stories that define 2011. People use this time of year to reflect on the happenings and the lessons of the past 12 months. There is more than just a nostalgia about this time of remembering. The introspection can be educational and therapeutic. After all, didn't someone smart and famous say that if we do not learn from the past then we are destined to repeat it?
I have been so busy this fall and into the holiday season I had not had much time for this kind of thinking. Then someone close to me pointed out that my year had been really hard. I hadn't thought of it that way. I guess the puzzled look across my face gave my thoughts away and she began to recount some of the events of the last year.
Even now I could list the trials that God ordained for my life in 2011, but my motivation would not be to lament over the year's difficulties, but rather to praise my Savior for bringing me through each one. I want to look back and see Him glorified, not me as some martyr who survived.
The truth is that I do not have to look far to find someone who has been brought through so much worse. Actually, I am blessed to see many of my trials finished, while there are others still bearing harder, heavier burdens.
My year-end peace is not in the completion of a "hard" year or the resolution to some hard times. My peace is in the One who orchestrated each step of the journey I can label 2011. My peace is in the fact that this year, this life isn't at all about me.
Yes, I will spend some time looking back this weekend, but it won't be about my year -what I did or didn't do. I want to spend the time reflecting about what God has done this year. I want to rest in the peace that He has been intimately involved in my life and the truth that He isn't finished with me yet.
Please feel free to post a reflection on how God has shown Himself to you in 2011.
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