Happy New Year

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Is it really 2008? Every year that goes by I am amazed how much faster it goes and to look back at what I have been through. Some are worth remembering more than others-can I get an amen?! Yeah, well, 2007 would at first glance be one to forget for us. But looking again I'd say, heck yeah, let's do it again cause something good is going to come of it! It ended so well with God bringing us to Brazil, Indiana. What a ride this will be! I haven't had my quiet time today yet, but I made a new year's resolution and began it already yesterday. I am going to read through the Bible utilizing a Bible I got several years ago after attending a conference. My health resolution starts tomorrow with eating more healthy, getting the exercise I need to both lose weight and maintain it as well as just taking the steps to live a healthier life. With the history on my side of the family and seeing what my parents are facing with their health it is a great motivator for me to do better starting now. I will be aging another year this month-36! My first thought about this coming birthday is I am that much closer to 40. It is rather depressing at first, but I honestly have never been one to be down about aging, rather, I embrace it. I think we all need to look at aging as an improvement of ourselves, which hopefully we are doing something beneficial in our lives each year we age. I know there are many people who don't, and have many regrets about their lives and aren't doing much of anything to live life well. At the risk of sounding like a movie or repeating some cheesy quote, I choose to embrace my life from this point forward and hopefully I will live each day with an attitude of gratitude, a sense of adventure, a willingness to take risks for the sake of being authentic, genuine and real. I don't care how much money I make, how big a house I have, or the places I can say I have been; life is in the here and now, whether or not I choose to embrace joy every day I am allowed the privelege of living on this earth. God is good, all the time--a phrase we say often, but hopefully we really mean it when we say it. I know I do.

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