Bringing on a New Year always seems exciting, unplanned and dotted with a little trepidation of what is unknown. However, looking back over the year I realize I reflect mostly on the people i know and love more so than the events that have taken place. It's probably because that is where I tend to place my value, I tend to measure a day or week by the people the Lord has placed in my life.
I realize people come and go, but they all have been in my life for a reason and a time. Some people I may not welcome with open arms but they teach me patience or perhaps refine my character or even better yet, display a reflection of my less than stellar traits.
Sweeter, are the friends and family that have intercepted life through its journey. I am forever grateful for my family, they are a steady foundation I build on every day and I am not sure what I would do without them.
Circumstances and the undulation of life itself often change who is woven into my life. There are friends that reside far away and it's unknown when or where I will ever see them again, but they know (or at least they better) the very special place they have formed in my heart. They had their time and place in my life and shaped and molded me in a way that they may never even know. Their season was sweet and though the sun as set on our time as friends who live together or see each other on a daily basis, they are just as important now as before.
People have entered my life throughout the past few years and even just this past year that find a way into my heart, affect my life and give me lessons to learn. Some, I have known for years, some for a few months and others I have yet to meet :) So, for me, it's a journey with those around me. Even now, there are some people I feel I have known for what seems like forever, but as relationships grow and change, it's as if I have rediscovered them in a way I did not know before. I have to ask myself how I missed that all before, because now that I know what I do, it seems to have enriched me further and I love them more for it.
So, I embrace the New Year as another journey and thankfully it's a journey with family and friends who will teach me, grow me, sharpen me and enrich me and I can only hope I do the same for them.
To top it off, as I was flipping through some creative writing pieces of a few writers, I saw this:
A season of friendship
owes no responsibility to time
A friend may be forever
but it's intimacy may only last for a summer
A friend's embrace
may last only to keep out a winter's chill
Their laughter may only quell
in springs unveiling moments
There is a time to hold on
There is a time to let go
A friends moment in life may
unravel for years
or
sweeten life for only a season
Neither is sweeter
neither is deeper
But each shines brighter
in its season of time
My time was then,
your time is now
hold dear my friend
if it's time to go
Hold tighter my friend
if our season is now
enjoy the journey :) See ya in the New Year!