Southside Baptist Church, Athens, AL

For most people, the week of New Year's Day is always a time of:

1. Reflecting,
2. Planning, and
3. Resolving.

From the church perspective, I began reflecting on 2008 last month as we evaluated 2008 and started to plan the 2009 church calendar.  But from a family perspective, we began last week.  During our travel time to Pell City, Brooke and I were really able to talk a lot about the year gone by and the one approaching.  The kids were already in Pell City which gave us a full, uninterrupted 2-hours for discussion: no radio, no TV, no phone calls, no sibling rivalry.  (One thing I hope we do in 2009 is get more time like this!)

From Reflection to Recognition

During this discussion we were reminded that 2008 was a year of big decisions and changes in our family that should have made the year somewhat tumultuous, but didn't.  We made the decision to homeschool our children which required Brooke to quit her job teaching at Decature Heritage.  This, of course, reduced our family income, and with the initial investment to begin homeshcooling it increased some expenses.  But the Lord, in His loving care has provided our every need.  We determined it would be necessary to sell our Tahoe, but it has not been necessary.   We cannot reflect on such things without recognizing God's graciousness toward us.  There is much more, but I just want to make the point that our reflection is turned to recognition of God's work; my prayer for you today is that in your reflection you, too, will recognize God's work in your life.