Thoughts on the New Year.

My paternal Grandma has a few traditions that come about on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thanksgiving we have to give our Attitude Reports which is a sharing of how our attitude was/improved/worsened over the year. Usually I look forward to sharing my attitude report and to hearing others. This year I was not so excited about sharing my report.

2011 has been the hardest year of my life. I'm more then happy to see it go. I was talking to some family friends last night and they said "well, you've got no where to go but up!" I sure wish that were true! I mean, I really do think this year is going to be great. We'll be having our second child, and there are possibilities for great jobs for Trent, and finding a new place to settle down in, for hopefully a few years. But the fact of the matter is, we don't know what is going to happen, and there is the chance that 2012 could be the worst year of our lives.

My Grandma's Christmas tradition is called "The Gift of Giving." On Thanksgiving, my Grams gives everyone $30. We're supposed to take that $30 and go and do something for someone who needs it for Christmas. We are all surrounded by people around us who have more needs then ourselves. This year Trent and I gave gifts and money to someone we saw needed some extra love this holiday season. Trent had a good friend from high school pass away in May from cancer. His friend had a wife and an 8 month daughter when he died at 31 years old. We took the widow out for coffee and gave her gifts for her daughter and money to help her out with bills and she seemed really blessed by it. I kept thinking, while we were with her for 2 hours that she is having the worst time of her life. My year seemed not so bad as I listened to her talk of her heart break, and depression and the bittersweet feelings she has when her now 15 month old does something new. I cannot fully understand the depth of her pain.

The reality of life is that everyday is an unknown. I'm thankful that God tells us not to fret about tomorrow, because there are a whole lot of things to fret about. How distracting that would be from us living our lives to the fullest.

I'm not actually sure what 2012 will hold for us. I know what I hope for and I trust in the Lord that some of those things will come to fruition. I know that God has our best interests at hand, and that He is the best driver we could ask for. I also know that some of my hopes wont come to fruition, and that is because they were not what was best for us. I really do think and hope that the year will be better though.

I ended my attitude report this year by saying "We've got the Lord and that is really all we need." I'm going to hang on to that this year, nice and tight, because it really is the truth. So here is to hoping that 2012 has amazing things in store for us, and for you.

Happy New Year!