Straddle Day (12/31/2023)

Today is “Straddle Day.” Today, I know from experience, will be a day when memories of what has been will vie with hopes for what can be for my attention. Today will include lists of things I wish to accomplish besides the list of things for which I am most thankful. Today I will waffle between reflective and anticipative. Today my prayers will be full of gratitude as well as petition. Today is “Straddle Day.”

It is most fitting that today is also Sunday. This year is unusual, most “Straddle Days” are mid-week. But this year, the LORD gave me a heads up on how to navigate the day; it’s the LORD’s day – it’s the day when from waking up to lying down, my focus is on the LORD without whom I would not be. And so, I’m pretty hopeful this year because my “Straddle Day” sits firmly atop my faith, is anchored in hope, and lighted by love which I may not understand but cannot miss.

As I sat this morning with the LORD to welcome the day, my mind was full of memories of hundreds of days and hundreds of conversations with the LORD. And so, I began with the only logical and most honest words I knew. “LORD, thank You for loving me.” And then I simply sat in that love that is so deep I cannot fathom it, yet so real I cannot help but feel it.

This day, around the world, different people will say farewell to 2023 and stand to welcome 2024. There will be celebrations - quite dinners as well as noisy parties. And hopefully, all will take a pause to look for our LORD’s handprint in our lives because the LORD is all loving and all present to us even as we’ve grown too fond of “remote.” I pray that the Spirit hovers over us this day as “in the beginning.”

I have so many things I wish to do, I hope to do, I feel called to do. I am sure I am not alone. But this one day, as I look back and seek to look forward, there is one prayer I have for the LORD. LORD, grant us the vision to see You within one another, to see the potential You have sown within our very fiber, and to allow your love for us individually to flood our minds, hearts, and beings and unite us as your children.

My prayer for each of you this day is that you will have time to give thanks for the LORD’s loving presence throughout this past year as well as graces given for your journey. I also pray that as you look ahead, you will seek the LORD’s guidance and grace. Though we were created unique and diverse, we were created for unity – to be one family of the LORD. May we all pray in earnest and with sincerity, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.