New Year thoughts - 1st January 2023

Jenny sent the following thoughts to be shared at the Sunday morning meeting on New Year's Day.

I was thinking of this past year and all that's happened and all the illness that has happened this Christmas and the disappointments because of it. I was reminded of the song  'Songs in the night'. I am sure 2023 will bring its own trials and storms. It is how we weather them that tests our faith. At times our faith will be sorely tested and God can seem very distant from us. Even Paul must have wondered where God was at times when he was shipwrecked and put in prison and endured 'his thorn in the flesh'.  Most of the time though it is not the storms outside that cause us trouble so much as the storms within. It is the storms within that cause the most chaos. We really only find peace and strength within ourselves to cope if we know we are 'ok' and will be 'ok' despite the storms that come. To God we are 100% ok, 10 out of 10.  If we start this New Year believing that then maybe, just maybe we will be better equipped to fight the storms within when they come. And they will come. Storms bring change. Change brings insight. God loves us all too much to let us remain unchanged. What He did though is give us Himself and each other to help us weather the storms when they come.

The following verses of scripture were shared as encouragements as we enter a new year:

"My heart is not proud, Lord,
    my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
    or things too wonderful for me.
But I have calmed and quieted myself,
    I am like a weaned child with its mother;
    like a weaned child I am content.
Israel, put your hope in the Lord
    both now and forevermore."
​(Psalm 131)

"'I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you."
(Psalm 32:8)

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