Hopeeee New Year

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The clock struck twelve and the calendar did too – welcome to 2012!


Maybe it’s a sign of aging, but I didn’t stay up to watch the old year gone, however, I was up before the New Years’ dawn.

Watching the night sky fade, I thought of 2011, and the eleventh hour. I felt the morning chill and longed for the sun. It waited. The dark clung hard. I shivered. A hunger for light, for warmth, gnawed cold.

Will the cold ever go? Will the darkness give way? How long must I wait?

Silence…and then quietly, stretching wings and heads tilting toward heaven. The birds started slow, short and sweet. Still in the dark, still in the cold – they started to sing. Like the echo of angels, from a long ago silent night, welcoming the Dayspring.

And then…the sky rolled back the black.

Shades of orange hit the horizon

Blue and grey splashed across the sky

Light rolled like a mighty wave, chasing darkness toward the west, leaving only traces of dark, hiding behind the trees.

And looking back and looking forward, I just have to say – Happy New Year.

Yes, we have hurdles and hills, but no matter what there is Hope.

No matter what you hear on the news. No matter what the doctors say. No matter what you see in your bank account. No matter how hopeless you may feel. There is hope for joy, for peace for fulfillment. There is a Light that can warm the cold, fill the hunger and chase the dark.

Where can you find such hope? Well…

My hope is built on nothing less

Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.

I dare not trust the sweetest frame,

But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.

Refrain

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,

All other ground is sinking sand;

All other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness seems to hide His face,

I rest on His unchanging grace.

In every high and stormy gale,

My anchor holds within the veil.

Refrain

His oath, His covenant, His blood,

Support me in the whelming flood.

When all around my soul gives way,

He then is all my Hope and Stay.

Refrain

When He shall come with trumpet sound,

Oh may I then in Him be found.

Dressed in His righteousness alone,

Faultless to stand before the throne.

Refrain