Looking back, looking forward!

I am, by nature, an optimist.  I tend to trust people, because I believe that they have good intentions.  I tend to look forward to the future rather than dwell on the past, because I believe whatever happened, even if it wasn't pleasant, was for the best.  I tend to favour action rather than contemplation, because I believe we can fix things along the way and things will turn out fine in the end.

For these reasons, I enjoy the New Year.  It's a chance to look forward, review and reset my goals, and start new habits.  Some goals are recurring - for example, I intend to keep up my "one half marathon every quarter" target and to write at least 25 of these blogs!

But because I tend to look forward, I sometimes forget to look back - not in regret, but in thankfulness.  It was pointed out to me yesterday that Black Friday is the day immediately after Thanksgiving.  Kind of sad that the very day meant to give thanks for all we have received, is followed immediately by an orgy of rushing to buy more stuff we don't need!

So let me spend some time being grateful so I don't go rushing blindly into the New Year to acquire stuff I don't need.  There are too many to specifically recount for 2017, so I'll pick a few.

Starting backwards - I'm grateful for the chance to bring my parents, my wife's mum and my own kids on a 10-day family holiday this November-December.  I'm not sure that very many of my peers still have the chance to do this - but in past years, I've had the opportunity bring my parents to Western Australia, Penang, Lijiang, and even Israel (twice!).  And they've been fit enough to enjoy all these trips, with all the walking and climbing they entail.  Happy!!

I'm grateful that my employer gave me the rare chance to spend a fruitful 2 months in September-October studying in the US, meeting really cool people from all around the world, learning from their successes, broadening my outlook and helping me to think bigger, and just be a much more useful person to my employer.

Sometime in about March, we had to reconfigure our bread distribution group of volunteers.  There was a risk that things would fall apart, but the reverse happened - the pool of volunteers grew more diverse and some of the new volunteers became even more regular!  Even though my wife and I switched our long-standing relationships with our usual floors to someone else in our group, by the end of the year, all of us had established strong relationships with our new floors.  The Christmas party we organised for the residents had our host's large home full to capacity, and we had new friends come to Christmas service too!

In February, one of my JC basketball teammates told me that a bunch of old secondary schoolmates from another class was starting a fortnightly game back at school.  I didn't know most of them - I have always been rather dim at this "making friends" thing, even back in school days - but I decided to turn up.  And I am so grateful for this bunch making me feel welcome.  Even though we were once schoolmates, to all intents and purposes, I was a stranger to most of them.  But I never felt left out, and this fortnightly game, and even sitting on the sidelines chitchatting when our legs can't move any more, has become one of the highlights of the week for me.  Thanks guys!

And finally, some bits and pieces - I'm grateful I made it to 43, still running, still employed :D  I'm grateful for my wife, who is always so patient with me, and is my best cheerleader in what I do at home, in the office, with our community service, and in church.  I'm grateful for my kids, both so different, both so amazing - things don't always go their way, but they are kindhearted, hardworking and continually surprise us with their resilience and creativity.

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I recently came to observe that two people, who had experienced pretty much exactly the same year's life events, came to completely opposite conclusions.  One of them complained to me, "as you know, X and I had a terrible year".  But just one day before that, X had shared with us, "I'm so thankful for the past year - God enabled me to make it through with everything I needed."  I concurrently felt sorry for the first person, while rejoicing for the second person, even though both had gone through exactly the same events.

Isn't that curious?  We can't necessarily control what happens around us.  But we can choose how we respond to what happens.  We can choose to complain, or we can choose to be grateful.  We can choose to be joyful and thankful in all circumstances, or we can choose to have our happiness arbitrarily dictated by what happens.  I know which kind of life I would prefer! 

So - thank you Jesus for 2017.  I can't wait to see what You have in store for me, and my family and friends, in 2018. 

"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."  1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

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