One year is…12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes. It is an eternity for some and a moment for others. In one year we grow, we change, we learn, we love, we hurt and we lose. We have good days, bad days and status quo days.

We experience life each day, it is a gift each and every day. We often don’t see the gift. It is clouded by schedules, demands, illness, pain, distraction, and all that goes on around us, vying for our attention.

Opening our eyes after a nights sleep. Taking a breath of fresh air as you step outside. Feeling the sun or the rain on our face. These, when we take the time to realize, to stop for a moment, to pause and pay attention, this is the gift.

So much can happen in one moment of the 8,760 hours in a year.  This space is dedicated to the pause, to stop and take the everyday good, bad, exciting and mundane and find the joy. It may be slight, like the flight of a bird or butterfly or as grand as the birth of a child or the death of a friend. In it and thru it all one constant remains. God is there.

We are never alone. All we do and go through has come through Him, and we are to count it all joy.

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1:2-4

So, not matter what, look for the joy.

Amen