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Same time next year

Monday, December 31, 2001

Psalm 96:1-2
Sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord, praise his name;
proclaim his salvation day after day.


64% of the respondents in a nationwide poll said they're staying home tonight. Family and friends (and safety) have found the foreground in many American minds. After two millennium celebrations and the American Tragedy of September 11, we are as a country on New Year's Eve, quiet, perhaps pensive, certainly thankful. And more ready to rest than to party. Several of the newspaper comics today joked about falling asleep early.

Me, I'm eagerly awaiting tomorrow night's Sugar Bowl, when the Illini will be playing football in New Orleans. Andi is going to her first high school New Year's Eve shindig with her friends from church. Margaret and I are going out to a New Year's Eve party for the first time in several years. Marc will be out with his friends, and Chris is on his way to New Orleans with a vanload of his friends.

I guess once again we're not quite in the mainstream, if 64% counts as a mainstream. On the other hand, I do feel quiet, pensive, thankful. In the one counseling appointment I had today we prayed about the end of this year, the beginning of the next, and prayed for God to make us more mature. Maybe that's what I feel more than anything, a little more mature: at least sometimes more patient, less striving, more often surrendering to God and less demanding.

We are so much alike, and yet so different from each other. How are you reflecting on 2001 and planning for 2002? Let me know ... I'd like to put together some of what you're thinking and share it with others later this week. God bless you today and tomorrow. See you next year.

You are creative, Lord, you are unpredictable, and yet we are always safe with you. You want to make us bigger, never smaller, than we were yesterday. Thank you for this day, and for this year. I can't wait to see what happens next.



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