Hope in the New Year!

I actually wrote this last January, but never posted it.  I don't know why. I had forgotten it was here, until I found it today, still waiting.  It makes me a little sad to read it, but then I was sad last January.  We had lost an important member of our family and so it was difficult to imagine how we could march full of hope into a new year.

Nevertheless, the words are just as true for me this January, as last. I always face a new year with a little apprehension.  The up-side to that is it's never without hope.

So, here's last years words for this year...

Well here we are, the first day of a new year!  As usual, I enter the new year with mixed feelings - excitement, hope, apprehension, and yes, fear. I guess this is probably true for many of us, but especially for those of us having a little age on us.  Unlike the young, we older folks no longer feel invincible and we've learned from experience that things don't always work out.

So I enter the new year, excited for the opportunity of a new beginning, hopeful that this year will be better than the last, apprehensive because I know the possibilities include both good and bad, and fearful of the bad.

I guess of all these feelings though, I'm the most hopeful!  I am hopeful that this new year will bring jobs to those in need of work, food for those who go to bed hungry every night, love for those who yearn for it but don't have it, healing to those who face devastating illness, peace to those whose minds harbor demons they have to fight every day of their lives, and hope to those who feel they are without hope.

Yes, mostly I'm hopeful.