the new old story

Welcome 2025!!!

Have you thought about how this year might be different from the last?

I’ve always loved the new year. For me, it’s a time to ponder the joys and blessings and let go of the trials and challenges of the past 12 months. I do this with the life-knowledge that this year will have its own difficulties.

I felt this most keenly in 2019 when my mother and Steven’s father died within 2 months of each other. That year is forever etched in my memory; a time that I acutely felt lost in the aching sadness of grief.

In January 2020, with 2019 behind me, I was ready to reset - to begin again. But, of course, we all remember 2020 as the year the whole world was thrown into turmoil.

I realize that a new year is never quite the same. And yet it always is.

It’s a new old story.

I wonder how Mary felt when she took the baby Jesus to be presented to the Lord in the temple. I wonder if she thought the hardest part - being unmarried and pregnant, the ridicule of bearing a child that was not her husband’s, then fleeing from Herod’s terror - was now over.

What could she have been thinking when Simeon announced to her, “And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

Jesus promised, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33).

No matter what 2025 throws at you, His presence goes before you. His power has already overcome. His provision will be enough, even when the old story tries to overshadow the new.

Isn’t this the best news you could hear as you look toward the next 12 months? He has overcome the world!

He is already there, present with you to help you through the challenges, to rejoice with you in the happiness, to sit with you in the pondering.

The same old story does not win.

For He assures us, ““Behold, I make all things new.” (Rev. 21:5)

May your New Year be blessed, my friends!

Love never fails.

1 Corinthians 13:8 NIV

Today is a GOOD day!

Natalie