Dear friends, this note today will be short, sweet, and prayerfully kind. As I write this message, I’m including prayers for you as we prepare to enter into the year 2022.
As I write, I’m very encouraged by what has already occurred during the 2021 Christmas season. Undaunted by reports of terror, people demonstrated acts of generosity and kindness regardless of lack of materialistic behavior. By this I mean, in many cases, trees were smaller and gifts were more thoughtful than materialistic. People actually shared more love this year.
I just finished a foreword for a new book of poetry by a remarkable woman; Verna May (Hall) Linzey. I mention this because the experience of reading and writing about her was so uplifting. It’s amazing how doing something for others can brighten our days.
While reviewing Verna’s book, I selected her poem on kindness to note my theme for the coming of the new year. It is my goal to be kinder in every circumstance and relationship in the year ahead.
“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32, ESV).
Recently, we have experienced another level of the dreaded “pandemic” with the omicron variant. Before this, I had already lost friends, family and loved ones to COVID-19, only now to have many friends and family members dealing with this new variant. The good news is that the variant is milder than the previous impact. Some are saying that this new strain is fighting back; acting as a natural antibody. Who knows? At any rate, we must keep praying for safety and healing.
As a result of mixed reports, while looking ahead to 2022, along with my prayers, I am experiencing a period of self-examination, repentance and hope that God will bless us all in the coming year. Prayerfully many of us are experiencing an awakening of a need for forgiveness, repentance and a holy love while seeking God for deliverance.
Over at alvedaking.com and speakforlife.org, as well as the AFPI Center for the American Dream, a prayer for America and the world is that we will be a shining light on the hill; and as the one blood/one human race, we are regarding and honoring human dignity and human life from the womb to the tomb.
It is my personal prayer that we will leave vanity and strife behind in 2021 as we seek the will of the Lord for our lives in 2022. Happy New Year; may the Lord bless you in the days ahead.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:16-17, KJV). {eoa}
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