People who see the sunrise on New Year’s morning belong to one of two camps: those who left their parties at dawn, and those who went to bed early. As a member of the second camp, I was up this morning, waiting for enough daylight for my walk.
The thick clouds and persistent darkness weakened my resolve. For a few minutes I struggled with an internal debate. Should I go now in the depressing gloom before company arrives or wait until later, hoping for sunshine and enough discipline to walk instead of visit? I sighed and put on my shoes.
The light was weak and the gloom was heavy on my shoulders as I trudged along the lane. But when I reached the gravel road and turned east, a soft glow greeted me. By the time I reached our neighbor’s property, a riot of pink, purple and orange glowed behind the bare, black branches of the winter woods and tinged the dirty snow with color.
The dawn of 2009 looks gloomy from my vantage point. We’re in a recession. The stock market keeps tanking. Royalties from my book are two years away, and who buys books during a recession anyway? Our son, who has nothing and needs health insurance, needs a job. Where will he find one in this economy? And where will Anne’s college tuition money come from next year?
Worries weigh me down. But hope stirs within me as I remember the unexpected blessings of 2008: my first book contract, our son’s treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and his re-entry into our lives, to mention a few. Surely, the God who brought the blessings of the past will provide new ones in the year to come.
This morning I experienced the first blessing of 2009. In the dim light of a gloomy morning, through branches black and bare, I saw Him paint the sky.
