Something New

If I was given a choice, I would probably say that between Christmas and New Year, the new year is more meaningful to me. It's not that I don't appreciate what Christmas is all about, but maybe because of all the other things that the previous could have been about I feel like the meaning of the new year feels clearer to me.

For the third straight year, we faced many unanswered questions and certain significant challenges. The first Christmas in Australia we both found ourselves with no jobs, the second year one of us had a job but had no work because of the holidays, and this year was another challenge altogether.

But in the midst of these challenges, the new year symbolized something important. It was like no matter what happened the year before, the challenge was to forget the past and face the challenges the new year brought. The new year is a reminder that something has ended but something new was about to begin. It's a challenge to stop dwelling on the past and all the excuses that we made as to why certain things did not happen. It's about making a decision to believe that what lies ahead is much better than the best or even the worst that has come before.

A year has past. A new year has begun. It's time again to pick up the pieces of the unfinished work that has been left for us to do.