to the start of all things new...

I'm back. I wasn't going to be. I've been thinking about giving the whole blogging thing the shove and having, checked how many people are still logging on, I think I can safely say that my 'readers' have dwindled to a handful - which, to be honest, I'm much happier about. Because now I can start afresh.

There have been a few reasons not to write in the last couple of months - laziness, feeling uncreative and lets face it, some thoughts and feelings just shouldn't be lain out there for anyone and everyone to critique. But I am breaking a pattern this year. For the first time ever I have made 'new years resolutions'. Something that I have been quite firmly against but am now softening my views on (time should soften us and not make us harder right?). And so I have 28 resolutions. 28 things (for 28 years) that I want to see, accomplish or be challenged by in 2008. Some of them I'll share over the coming weeks perhaps, but for now I just wanted to share someone else's thoughts to kick off my new year.

I've mentioned her before, Frances Havergals - an 18th century poet from England who most Christians know for being the author of "Take My Life". A while ago I picked up this tattered old book, with it's covers nearly worn off which has a thought of hers for each day. I'm under no allusions that I'll be disciplined enough to read each one each day (a girl can hope but I'm also a realist) but for this day at least i could share with you, in the last few minutes of the first day of this year, her thoughts about "A Leader You Can Trust".

'We have not passed this way heretofore, but the Lord Jesus has. 'For we have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities' (Heb 4:15). IT is all untrodden and unknown ground to us, but He knows it all by personal experience; the steep bits that take away our breathe, the stony bits that make our feet ache so, the hot shadeless stretches that make us feel so exhausted, the rushing rivers that we have to pass through, our Shepherd has gone through it all before us... And He does not only know, with that sort of up on the shelf knowledge which is not guilty of want throught among ourselves, but He remembers that we are dust...Think of that when you are tempted to question the gentleness of His leading. He is remembering al the time; and not one step will He make you take beyond what your foot is able to endure. Never mind if you think it will not be able for the step that seems to come next; either He will so strengthen it that it shall be able, or He will call a sudden halt, and you shall not have to take it at all...

...I, the Lord, am with thee, be thou not afraid!
I will help and strengthen, be thou not dismayed!
Yea, I will uphold the with My own right hand;
Thou art called and chosen in My sight to Stand.
Onward then, and fear not, children of the day.
For His word shall never, never pass away!
For the year before us, oh what rich supplies!
For the poor and needy living streams shall rise;
For the sad and sinful shall His grace abound;
For the faint and feeble, perfect strength be found."

Not a bad reminder to start the year off with eh?