Woweee, 2008. What a year. I met Mike for the first time in January. I said yes when he asked me to marry him in May. I appeared on the cover of a magazine in (Christian Singles, ironically). I traveled to Australia, Kenya, Tanzania, Washington DC, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan and Colorado. I pondered on what hope means. I tried hard to work on writing. I mostly felt like I was failing on that front.

Deep breath.

And now it’s the last day of the year and CNN is filled with distressing news, as it usually is. Only it’s seemed grimmer and more distressing than usual these last few months – economic downturn, nightclub fires, wars in far away places that really aren’t so far away… It all stands in rather stark contrast to my own happiness at present as I prepare to get married on the 24th of January, and I’m not blind to the shadows.

I often think it might be easier to be blind to the shadows. But I know I wouldn’t choose that, even if I could.

So as I look forward to 2009 I’m anticipating the promise of great happiness, and working to embrace the great uncertainties that are coming with this life change. We do not know if Mike – a water and sanitation engineer – will be able to find a job in LA, much less one he likes, and so we don’t know if we’ll still be here this time next year. Long term we really have no idea where in the world we may end up.

But we are happy. And hopeful that these changes, like many of the changes that will come upon the world in the next year, will lead to good and to growth. So I’ll close the year with one of the passages we’ve chosen to read at our wedding.

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”   

May you see the love of Christ this year – in places you expect, and in those you don’t.

Thanks for stopping by,
Lisa