New Year Thoughts

“The light shines in the darkness…”

So we come to this day, the last day of the year 2011. We are now on the year ending. How do you see the end of your year? Maybe you have seen only what is the year ending in your place, village, town or city. Some of you who have televisions, you would see clearly that the year is still ending with dangerous movements and fear- terrorism, frightening crimes, natural disasters, volcano eruptions, flood, energy and economic crises. The year is ending with a lot of our brothers and sisters in great suffering. There is darkness in the world because of the sins of humanity.

But in Proverbs 14:26, it says: “In the fear of the Lord there is a strong confidence, and His children will have a place of refuge.” The Lord is the Help, the Shield and the Light. He is born, and now, we are going to start anew. We enter into a new life, a new beginning, leaving behind the sins of the past and to work out the future. In the parish, we always have the year ending meeting, an evaluation of the whole year and making Action Plans for the year to come. First of all, we have to be thankful to the Lord for the events in 2011, we will count our blessings again, reflect our sins and lapses, even the moments of trials. See the wonders the Lord has done in your life! When we acknowledge that greatness and trust in the Lord, then the light has shown in your life. He will become our refuge from the fears in this world. In Him, we find peace.

Today is the last day of 2011, and then it means we have to welcome a new one. In a few hours we will say goodbye 2011 and say hello to 2012. Was 2011 a year of promotion for you? Was it a year of abundance, fruitful, wedding, birth? Was 2011 a year of achievement for you? How did you succeed? For other people 2011 was a year of death, a year of losing job, of business bankruptcy, a year of accident, or broken relationship. It was a year of setback.

This is precisely the reason why God divided time into months and years, seasons and cycles, past, present and future. So that in the past, we can have a place to bury out mistakes, in the present, we can see the mark of our success, and in the future, we can see the place where we can peg our hopes and dreams and ambitions.

We are on the last hours of 2011, and as soon as 24:00 ends and 00:01 ticks the clock, a new year begins, a new hope in the Lord 2012. Today offer to the Lord your failures of the past and your hopes for the New Year. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. We offer to Him our dreams, goals and ambitions.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012!