Goodbye 2008

“We always enjoy looking down a long road lined with beautiful trees. The trees are a delightful sight and seem to be forming a temple of plants, with strong wooden pillars and arches of leaves. In the same way you look down a beautiful road like this, why not look back on the road of the years of your life? Look at the large green limbs of God’s mercy overhead and the strong pillars of His loving-kindness and faithfulness that have brought you much joy. Do you see any birds singing in the branches? If you look closely, surely you will see many, for they are singing of God’s mercy received ‘thus far.’”

This quote is from the December 31 devotional in Streams in the Desert. It is such a fitting quote as I say goodbye to 2008. It was a year that was sprinkled with God’s blessings which stand out so brightly against the dark, foreboding background of much of the year. It was a year that was filled with much pain. It was a year in which I was forced to question some of the things that had become almost like bedrock in my life. It was a year in which emotional turmoil was manifest in real physical distress. It was a year in which others in my extended family were enduring different but very difficult circumstances. In my book, 2008 is being filed away with 2004, 1999 and 1996 – very hard years which would not have been endurable without those branches of God’s tender mercies.