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Holidays

Honey, Where Am I Going?

The curtain will be falling on another year shortly. The record is written. It will be reviewed at the Judgment.

We need to acknowledge wrongs and falsehoods with grief and shame. We can correct mistakes with firm resolve not to repeat them. But to wear last year's failures about one's neck is a burden no one should carry as she faces the New Year.

G.K. Chesterton once boarded a train and became so engrossed in his reading he forgot his destination. When the train paused at a station, he got off and called his wife to ask, "Honey, where am I going?" Laughingly she asked, "Why don't you look at your ticket?"

What does your ticket say? What is your destination for the New Year?

Where are you going and how will you get there? Are you charting your own course or are you leaving it in the capable hands of God? You know, 2004 could be the best year of your life.

Whatever was harmful and hurtful along your road during the past year, get forgiveness for it. The way to get forgiveness is to want it and accept the fact that you need it, take it and then give it. Want it, admit you need it, take it, and give it.

There was a fundamental difference between the scribes and Pharisees and the publicans and sinners of Jesus' day. The latter group could accept forgiveness easily. The other could not.

With God, one sin is as easy to forgive as another, but God has to grapple with different kinds of hearts. The heart that knows most happiness is the one who has what Fenelon called simplicity—the unaffected, unstained ability to accept God's grace. Accept God's forgiveness for whatever has been hurtful or harmful in your past.

Lift up your heart in gratitude to God for whatever was good and helpful during the past year. If you were a blessing to others and were blessed by others, the only way to remove the mortgage of blessedness is to lift up your heart in gratitude and humility and leave the blessings behind. Pride comes quickly from fingering our blessings. Let us leave them gratefully.

So, our recipe for looking down the road of no return is to learn from it and leave it. Remember, every end is a beginning and so is the end of the year.

The Chinese have a symbol for the word tomorrow. It is "bright day." That is what every tomorrow is meant to be in the light of God. It is also meant to be that for you if you will let it be.

To leave the old with a burst of song,
To recall the right and forgive the wrong;
To forget the thing that binds you fast
To the vain regrets of the year that's past;
To have the strength to let go your hold
On the not worthwhile of the days grown old;
To dare go forth with a purpose true,
To the unknown task of the year that's new;
To help your brother along the road,
To do his work and lift his load;
To add your gift to the world's good cheer,
Is to have and to give a glad New Year.
— Author unknown