Category: new year

New Year’s Prayer for Hurting Hearts

Some of us enter trembling through the door of a new year. 

This last year wasn’t so good and our hearts are broken.

What if the next year is worse?  How will we manage?  Where can we hide from bad news, bad outcomes, disastrous trauma?

Truth is, we can’t.  

So here we are, bravely marching in, hanging on to hope and begging God for mercy.  

Father God,

I admit that I am scared.  No matter how many times I read or someone reads to me, “Fear not!” my heart screams, “Easy for YOU to say!”  I know deep down that You are here.  I know that nothing happens without You seeing.  But I am still trembling.  

Help me feel Your Presence.  Help me hold onto the hem of Your garment.  Help me reach out and take possession of the promises You give me-to guide, carry and strengthen me.  When I am weak, You are strong.  If I forget everything else, don’t let me forget that.

Lord, even if no new disaster takes shape in the months to come, I’m left holding the broken pieces of a broken life and I am oh, so tired of plodding through my days trying to put it all back together.  Bring light into the dark corners.  Bring hope into the desperate places.  Bring tangible help to my doorstep so I can find a little rest in these weary days, weeks, months.

Whatever this year brings, You are already there. 

You know the end from the beginning.  Nothing takes You by surprise.  

And when I want to give up and give in, speak courage to my soul.  Lift my head and help my heart hold on.  ❤

strength made perfect in weakness ant

 

New Year’s Eve and Auld Lang Syne

There is something about the song, “Auld Lang Syne” that strikes a chord in the hardest heart.  

You don’t have to understand the words to understand the meaning behind them.  

“Should old acquaintance be forgot and days of auld lang syne?”

Every new year since Dominic left us my heart screams, “NO!” in answer to that question.  We CAN’T forget!

But we do.  No matter how carefully I mine the memories, I find the details beginning to escape me. 

I have boxes of photographs but even nearly [eleven] years out I find some of them too hard to look through.  When I see the innocent laughing eyes in pictures of six year old Dominic it breaks my heart.  Why oh why was I worried about so many things other than simply experiencing life in the moment?

But then I bring my heart back to reality and sternly tell myself that I had no idea what the future held.

And that’s really the crux of it, isn’t it? 

We don’t know what tomorrow will bring.  We plot and plan and hope and dream but in the end we have very little control over how our story ultimately plays out.

So we are left each New Year’s Eve with some good memories, some not so good ones and some we cling to like gold from a treasure chest because they are all we have.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot and days of auld lang syne?

Never. 

As long as this heart beats. 

I will not forget.