Photo by Jean Wimmerlin
The New Year Approaches
The new year approaches like a lion
about to pounce on its prey!
The current year, once fat with trajectories, triumphs,
trials, and tragedies, has now been consumed.
All that is left is the skeleton,
picked clean by the carnivores of coincidence,
chaos, time, and trying.
That casualty is perhaps both
lovingly and disdainfully remembered,
as the strong, wild animal, she once was.
It was a year filled with opportunities and obstacles,
wounds inflicted, victories fought for, prayed for,
and some mercies granted.
A year of choosing faith,
at times strong,
at times a whisper.
Only one constant.
The Lord is always with me. ¹
“Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday and today
and forever.” ²
Thankfully, “forever”
includes the coming new year.
Matthew 28:20
Hebrews 13:8
© 2022 gratefulsue
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After the fireworks or champagne of New Year’s Eve are gone, do you look forward to the new year? Are you an optimistic person or a fearful person? A little of both? Nostalgic? Excited? Or, is it “no big deal”?
I tend to be a bit freaked out by the passing of another year the older I become, as this poem reflects. The “wild animal” consisting of the coming year’s events, opportunities, and some disappointments seems to be consumed by time, more quickly, like a lion hungrily eating its prey. I cannot save the beautiful gazelle, or zebra, or even the odd wildebeest, from being consumed by the lion, time. Yet in each day’s passing, the Lord is always with me (Matthew 28:20).