Blog

“Ending the Year with Thankfulness”
    One of the last big holidays we celebrate at the end of every year is Thanksgiving. We come together in person or via technology and are able to see and think about the blessings that God has given to each of us. We also come together as churches and communities in various ways of giving thanks to particular people by volunteering, donating and serving in our communities in various ways. Thankfulness is sad and shown a lot during this month and at this holiday.
    The end of celebration for this holiday does not stop with the holiday of Thanksgiving. Although Christmas is seen as a time for giving, we also have the opportunity to say thank you, first and foremost to our heavenly father for the gift of his son. Then we have the opportunity to “thank” many people in our lives by the giving of gifts, a special card, or maybe a donation to a charity or group. What a great way to end each year: the opportunity to give thanks in a myriad of ways to many different people
    As we anticipate entering into a new year, we get to be reminded once again of the lives that we lived in the previous year. We get to end the year thinking and thanking and we have the opportunity to begin the new year, the same way. We get the opportunity to thank God for a new year of his blessings and his opportunities yet to be unfolded. We get to thank God for the journey that he has carried each of us through. We get to think and imagine with God’s help what the new year will bring. And ultimately, experiencing those moments when God brings them into our lives, we get to thank him for the opportunity.
    Some of us know some of the opportunities that will await us in the year of our Lord 2024. It may be the opportunity to attend college and study a particular passion that God has led you to. It may be the opportunity to pursue a career in a field you have long trained for, prayed for, and ultimately have been prepared for. Or it may be a totally new avenue for you to discover and take the first step in a new journey. Some of us do not know what this next year will hold and we will be trusting and believing in God even more fully than we ever have before.
    In whatever situation we find ourselves in, in whatever opportunity we have put in front of us, we have the greater opportunity to be thankful. Thankful in the moment, thankful in the simplicity, thankful in the complex. Whatever the situation brings us we can be thankful that we have a God that is in control of it all. Whether we have the five steps down pat for our next adventure or are going into a new opportunity with eyes wide open, we have the opportunity to be thankful.
    As we enter the year of our Lord 2024, we do so with thankfulness, thankfulness of where we have been in the past year, thankfulness of where we are now as we enter this new year and thankfulness that we know that we have a God that can carry us forward into the future. Thank You, Father, for always being with us even when the road seemed to end, the idea seemed to stop or the passion seemed to die. You alone know the plan for our lives and know the next steps that need to be taken. Thank you for what you have given us already in our lives and the opportunities that we will be given in this new year. Above all we thank you that we can move forward in the glorious reminder of the birth of your son. How can we not end each year with thankfulness?
The Wheeled Worshiper