Goodbye 2011

Well, it is January 2, 2012 so I guess I should officially say goodbye to 2011!  I'll have to say I won't miss it too much.  The weird thing is I'm having a hard time remembering anything that happened before August.  Let's see, Daniel was in 1st grade and Julia was in 4th last January.  Yup, that's about all I remember.  OH I do remember the first sunny week of summer.  It started in August when Dave went to the ER and continued the next few days as we waited in the hospital to find out our future.  I remember standing at the hospital window, shaking my head that it was finally sunny and we were stuck inside.  It's funny, in the movies when something sad happens it starts to rain.  In real life the sun came out.  God probably knew I'd get too depressed if it was a rainy summer day when we were told Dave had cancer! 

While I didn't get very many projects done in December, I did manage to do one.  Be impressed.  This really is the extent of my "craftiness".  It is a glass Christmas ornament stuffed with some of Dave's hospital bracelets.  He has been saving them (I have no idea why...), he had one every day of radiation, then a few others from various tests and hospital visits.  I've always loved the idea of memorial stones.  In Joshua 3 and 4 you can read the story of Israel crossing the Jordan River on dry ground.  The Lord told Joshua to have 12 stones collected from the dry ground and use them as a testimony of what the Lord did that day.   Joshua told the Israelites, when your children ask about these stones, you tell them, " 'Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground'. For the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed, just as the LORD your God had done to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed; that all the people of the earth may know that the hand of the LORD is mighty so that you may fear the LORD your God forever."   I don't particularly want to remember all the grimy details of this last year.  I do, however, want to remember all that the Lord has done.  So next year when we pull out our Christmas decorations, we will see this "memorial ornament" and not be sad that daddy had cancer, but we will remember that the LORD removed the cancer and showed us He is our Provider, Comforter, Healer, Sustainer and that He is mighty to save.

Here is to a New Year.  A fresh start filled with Hope.  Remember:

This life, therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise.  We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it; the process is not yet finished but it is going on.  This is not the end but IT IS THE ROAD; all does not yet gleam in glory but all is being purified...