I love looking back at the old year, in a way. I love to see the good things. I hate to see it passing. I always like the old and familiar much better than the new and untried.

Last night we sat down with our older children and shared what we were thankful for over the past year. We came up with over four pages of blessings!  Then we shared a glass of wine with them and prayed. (One glass between the four of us; they are only fourteen and eleven!)

The last entry I wrote down was one from my husband: Thanks for a quiet and an uneventful year.

I'm such a coward. As I look out from the first day of the new year I always feel scared. What will this year bring?  My father could die. Or something awful could happen to one of my children. The first is, humanly speaking, much more likely than the latter. But who knows?

I don't want to think about these things before they happen. I'm not strong enough. Thankfully, I know God is good and will sustain me. But the New Year forces me to stick my head out of my hidey-hole for  a while and survey the huge expanse of the unknown.

Just in case anyone else out there is like me.