New Year

Its 2006. I’m writing this about 40 minutes after the new year has come upon us, Chicago time. Or, should I say, we’ve come upon the new year? Or, better yet, we’ve been pulled out of 2005 and forced into 2006…after all, none of us did this on our own…time just happens!

2005 was a good year. Megan graduated from Grad school and subsequently passed her licensure examination for Professional Counseling, we heard God’s call to church planting in Charlottesville, Virginia, we visited Italy and saw/smelled/tasted many amazing things, and I grew a lot in terms of overcoming some personal “issues” that have held me back for some time.

2006 promises to be another banner year. We don’t yet know if we’ll look back on it and say it was a good year, but we do know already that it will be an exciting, adventurous, and event-filled year. We trust that it will be good too. Many exciting things are coming our way (or are we approaching them?), too much to describe tonight. But, nonetheless, it will be a banner year.

As I sat there, watching channel 7 do the countdown to 2006, then quickly switching over to channel 2, which entered 2006 about 12 seconds after channel 7 (I guess channel 7 can now legitimately say, “we were the first on the scene” since they’re all so hell-bent on beating the other channels to the latest horrific or scandalous scene), I realized that the same feeling I had on my 30th birthday was washing over me as we entered the new year. Again, nothing has really changed, except that we now have to get used to telling people that its 2006, or writing it on our notes…which always looks weird for a couple of months. We’ve been saying 2005 for so long now (at least a year), that it is simply new and foreign to say or write 2006. Therefore, I’ve determined that turning 30 or 40 or…is about as meaningful as being pushed into a new year, except that you also have a slightly new set of cultural expectations on you when you personally enter a new decade of your life.

Anyway…happy new year! I hope you entered it peacefully and joyfully, not kicking and screaming, trying to kung-fu grip 2005 as you avoid change…which is inevitable and often quite good for us.