As this season of hope, peace, JOY, love, gratefulness, thanks, and giving rounds out and we set our sights on new beginnings in a few short hours, reflecting on our potentials and possibilities becomes the next focus.  What can we do each day, each hour, or just each moment to make it better for someone else, to bring us closer together?  What can we do to help ourselves in the process?  Finding personal ways to focus on keeping the spirit of this powerful season with a constant sense of hope and love with you as companions each day, each hour, and each moment throughout the next year becomes a tall order…or does it?

A new year offers each of us a jump start and I’m grateful and thankful for this opportunity.  In taking time to reflect on the past year, remembering the triumphs and missteps, the greatest JOYs coupled with deepest sorrows, the times I opened myself up to grand spontaneous adventure or closed myself down from fear and sadness, this new year allows a fresh beginning to forgive, to do better, to do more, to give more, and most importantly, to love more.  There are just too many things in this life we cannot control (natural disasters, profound loss); it’s critical to focus our attention on what we can control (attitude, effort, forgiveness, second chances, fresh starts, embracing the what-will-be).

JOY in life cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn, or consumed (although I honestly tried my best on all fronts this past year, y’all!).  Being kind, compassionate, and loving are the real goals each day.  The spiritual experience of living these goals with great love, grace, and gratitude fill my soul with profound hope…and hope, my friends, prevails in our daily humanness.  I offer this hopeful challenge to us all in 2019 to:  BE, breathe deep breaths, forgive with grace, seek out an old friend, trust more, write letters, give soft answers, walk more, encourage one another, keep promises, forgo grudges, forgive with grace, apologize, work to understanding, smile at strangers, examine personal demands (this is me preaching to me), think first of others, be kind and gentle, laugh more, learn a new skill, appreciate the beauty and wonder of the world, explore nature, express gratitude, welcome others, and always speak your love over and over and over and over again and again and again and again…

Traditions are the stories we write together as family and friends; gratefully, we all begin another year of building on those traditions while continuing to write our stories.  It’s said no gift is too small or simple to receive when wrapped in thoughtfulness and tied in love.  I can only imagine the profound impact that another year bestowed upon us will truly have!

So, yes, please take time to ponder and remember the past year with fondness, but look forward to 2019 with anticipated eagerness, and reverently choose to challenge yourself and others to live each moment given to your personal fulfilled best, my friends.  Just know I’m holding your hand and we’re crossing into the NEW YEAR together…