January:Month of Hope and New Beginnings

“May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ enlighten your mind that you may know the great hope to which you are called”

Ephesians 1:17

 Pray each day this month for trust in the promises of God.

Another year is beginning…

I can feel its insistent call – come and see!

Experience me, try my ideas, put on my newness,

Warm my unused paths, my unexplored possibilities –

But I hold back – I look longingly to the past

to my old unchanging life, my oft-tried ideas,

I feel a deep desire to catch

the glow of past achievement and long-gone triumphs

one more time…

Something in me wants to hold on,

to gather all the good things close:

that part of me that hates to change

and keeps on urging me to hold on tight to what I know.

Then I see a light, your light my Saviour God,

a tiny flicker which moves its way through my fears

– a thread of courage lighting up my dark places –

They call it grace – it is enough for me –

I’ll take the road to yet another year – with hope!

Poem inspired by Joyce Rupp’s insight into light and darkness in “May I have this dance?”

Brenda Schofield