The gift of 2015 !

     Is it already time to walk away from 2014?  We were just getting the hang of that year: memorizing the steppingstones and catching on.    Hopefully, 2014 served us all well - elevating us and moving us onward.  Yes, we stepped on slick stones and slid backwards, perhaps like you, but we changed shoes that gave us a better grip and moved on.  Maybe you didn't change your shoes, but changed your route, your routine, or your goal.  And it worked!  Of course, there are those yesterdays with lost opportunities, but we like what Oswald Chambers says, " Let the past sleep, but let it sleep in the bosom of Christ."  Most of the time, praying our goodbyes is enough.

Now we are staring starkly into another year already.  Time has wings!   Everyone is making those New Year Resolutions to spend less time with technology and spend more time with PEOPLE, to change utter messes into organized arrangements, to chef better so friends will want to return to our table, to stay in the REM sleep stage longer, to collect less in order to give more, to give "happiness a comfortable seat," to pray and then believe more, and fill-in-the-blank...____________ more.  

We have been given another chance!  2015 has shown up right on time. It is a packaged gift. We recently visited with a friend who had forgotten about an investment made years ago.  When contacted by the investor, it was discovered that there were many thousands of dollars that had quietly remained untouched for years.  True story.  What joy to unwrap that gift!   2015 is our gift box to unwrap.  Whether we are pessimistic or optimistic, we are all curious.  Rudyard Kipling nailed it when he penned the following:

 "I keep six honest serving-men, 

 They taught me all I knew;

 Their names are What and Why and When

 And How and Where and Who.

                  Let's pick up our packaged gift and give it a shake, weigh it, smell it, and listen to it.  

A BAG OF TOOLS

Isn't it strange

That princes and kings, 

And clowns that caper

In sawdust rings

And common people

Like you and me

Are builders for eternity?

Each is given a bag of tools,

A shapeless mass,

a book of rules;

And each must make--

Ere life is flown--

a stumbling block

Or a steppingstone. 

(R.L. Sharpe)

Unwrap your 2015 gift box and use every tool in it to keep your own resolutions and to discover the investments that God made in you years ago.

Happy New Year!

Keep Looking Up!

J:im and L:nda