Dear Friends, Happy New Year’s Eve! What does your end of the year look like? Feasting? Fireworks? Football? Taking down the tree? Decorating for a New Year’s party? (Just hit reply or share in the comments. I really want to know!) I’ll make some sweet and sour collard greens and black-eyed pea salad and my hubby will smoke some pork for sure, and yes, we’ll take down the tree (we’re tree down by New Year’s kind of people). But I also always try to dedicate the last few days of December and the early days of January to some intentional time for planning. If you’d like to join me in the exercise I use, let me know, and I’ll send you my free ten-page Story Planner PDF.
It will be a great reunion of siblings under the roof of our childhood home! It’s not easy to gather the sister who lives in Bangkok, the brother from Denver, our beloved sister in law from Japan (who moved there many years ago to care for her aging mother) and myself from Florida, all to the islands at the same time even in normal times. Add in Covid and you know what complications arise. By the way, my description of our sister in law as beloved fits perfectly as she makes the ring of seven siblings feel more complete since the passing of our oldest brother twelve years ago. But today, on this new year’s eve, there will be the happy chaos of keiki (children)running through the house. They will be excited by the prospect of fireworks although it’s a rainy day here in paradise. There will be much feasting on island favorites, football games on tv, and most definitely there will be some serious games of scrabble. The beautiful and cool part of “our planning” is that God orchestrated this far before any of us knew it would happen. His grace and mercy to us is unfathomable! I thank God for his love that enables us to love others, especially those in our earthly family who may not know him(yet), just a little more each day.
It will be a great reunion of siblings under the roof of our childhood home! It’s not easy to gather the sister who lives in Bangkok, the brother from Denver, our beloved sister in law from Japan (who moved there many years ago to care for her aging mother) and myself from Florida, all to the islands at the same time even in normal times. Add in Covid and you know what complications arise. By the way, my description of our sister in law as beloved fits perfectly as she makes the ring of seven siblings feel more complete since the passing of our oldest brother twelve years ago. But today, on this new year’s eve, there will be the happy chaos of keiki (children)running through the house. They will be excited by the prospect of fireworks although it’s a rainy day here in paradise. There will be much feasting on island favorites, football games on tv, and most definitely there will be some serious games of scrabble. The beautiful and cool part of “our planning” is that God orchestrated this far before any of us knew it would happen. His grace and mercy to us is unfathomable! I thank God for his love that enables us to love others, especially those in our earthly family who may not know him(yet), just a little more each day.