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From Billy Grahm.

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1, NIV).

Markers

"When we sold our mountain home and moved several hundred miles north, the move was necessary and good -- but difficult. New beginnings are like that.

Why do we resist change? Maybe because there is security in the familiar. I loved our rambling two-story house nestled among the towering cedars and pines. The album of my mind turns easily to such familiar scenes as playful squirrels scurrying limb to limb while a noisy scrub jay hops about like a hot-headed referee. I still visualize morning rays cresting the peak beyond the ridge and the orange alpenglow lingering long after the sun has set.

Stout, wooden beams inside our lodge signified strength, durability and timelessness. Those timbers no doubt will span from hearth to front door for decades to come. But they will no longer welcome our guests or beckon our friends to the fireside.

As I cleaned the shell of our beloved home, I found two decades of "markers" smudged along the door frame in the kitchen. The lowest mark, barely three feet high, measured Holly when she was very young. Each of our children had left a mark: T. J. when his height topped his dad's; Colin's upward arrow when his six-foot-six-inch frame (in cowboy boots) shot above the door's frame.

The things that we value and want to remember have markers. They measure our size, our weight, the miles on a map, the number of pages we read before we fall asleep.

Life has markers too.

January 1 is a marker -- the only day of the year that looks both backward and forward. For 24 hours it is an open shutter focusing on the future.

The beginning of this year can be a marker, a time to release our hold on things or people. Maybe we are weighted down with emotions that we don't need to carry into the new year. God understands our hearts -- the pull of our past and our anxieties about the future. We need only to let go of the unnecessary fetters and let God lead the way." (Marjorie Lee Chandler).

Prayer
Lord, thank You for a new year in which to serve You. Help us to forget the problems of the past and trust You to take care of the future. Help us to remember Your past provision for us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.