Embracing the Great Adventure

This betwixt and between time when Christmas is over and we await the formal new year is always a little surreal to me.

For many in the UK, the magic and loving peacefulness has been replaced rapidly by a desire to spend money in the sales, large numbers of people snapping up trophy bargains which they do not really need in the belief they are saving money, forgetting that, instead, they are spending it. It can get to be an addiction, overwhelming common sense and exacerbated by peer pressure and crowd hysteria. For those individuals who know, sensibly, what they want and why, the freneticism of shopping at this time can be painful at every level.

The weather too is reflecting this time of pause before change as, here, the snows begin to melt and we have some rain. It seems as if extremes of weather have affected many parts of the world, with floods in the southern hemisphere and blizzards in Europe and now the US.  I suspect the hard winter/summer will continue to come and go, with interludes between, for some weeks yet. 

This pause-time now is given to us as an opportunity to reflect upon what we have seen and experienced in this last year and to identify what, in hindsight was important and what, in fact, just did not matter. What gave you pleasure, peace in your heart? How can you build on it and make it constant in your life? What did not seem to serve you, and what did it teach you? What do you want to leave behind, and what will you gladly take with you into the new year?

Remember, nothing is wrong and nothing is right, and so have no self-blame or sense of failure if you decide to move away from a cherished goal or aspiration. It is time to choose, time to be clear, time to prepare to move forward, even if you do not know where you are going. The more you embrace the Great Adventure which lies ahead for you, in trust, the more you will see God’s love for you manifesting perfectly in your life.