BEST WISHES FOR A NEW YEAR

Although it can’t help feeling cliché, one has to offer one’s best wishes for a new year. If only because the winning attitude is that which looks forward to triumphs and possibilities while erasing the past from one’s focus—if not from one’s memory—in order to address future opportunities instead of dwelling on one’s history, the tradition has value. So it is that, despite my cringing dislike for traditions that I deem empty of any real meaning, I come to this ’blog with that emptiest of all secular greetings, “Happy New Year!”.

A.D. 2008 has been a year of tremendous change and of tremendous challenge for my family. A lot of things have happened that no one foresaw and that, had we foreseen them, none of us likely would have faced with much optimism. For one, taking care of my parents has become for me a full-time job. Instead of pursuing a regular career, I clean their home, do their shopping, maintain their property and run their errands. About the only things I don’t do for them are prepare their meals (which my father still does) and take them to their doctor appointments (which my sister-in-law does). Also, Suzanne has developed some health-related challenges of her own. In July, it was determined that her jaws are out of alignment with one another. More recently, it was determined that the therapy needed to correct the condition will cost us tens of thousands of dollars. Brian, whose school grades and Boy Scout advancements provide his parents with no small amount of pride and joy, has been diagnosed as anorexic. We have to force him to eat enough to stay healthy. While Brian arguably qualifies as Poster Child for Anorexia Today, Suzanne and I continue to fight the Battle of the Bulge...a battle I may well be losing. In addition to the foregoing, I continued in ministry with a church that I had only begun to visit—while in search of a new home—and that, this past fall, was kicked out of the Church of God and forced to meet in parishioners’ homes.

Yet, as the old saying goes, “when God closes a door, He always opens a window”. Suzanne’s health woes, and the growing realization that—barring a miracle—we will never be able to pay for their remedy, are inexorably leading her to the realization that only God can rescue her from her current predicament. Indeed, as I have long suspected, most of her ailments are rooted in bad faith. By this, I mean that she invests her faith in hedges against calamity rather than investing it in the One whose grace can obviate calamities altogether. Now, our weakening finances are forcing her to trust Him with those things with which heretofore she has proven unable to trust Him. By spending so much time caring for my aging parents, I have had ample opportunity to witness to them regarding my faith. Now, as they grow ever more dependent on my care, I have even greater opportunities to demonstrate the practical aspect of that faith. At the same time, since the job is frequently more than I can handle alone, I have had opportunities to hire people to help me with those tasks that I cannot complete alone. Those people—such as Jon Wion, John Campbell, Andy MacLeod, and others—have shown my parents that my judgment in making friends is unquestionably sound. Since they are now largely defenseless and so at the mercy of any they admit into their home, this is a source of no small amount of security for them.

Lest my reader suppose that I suffer from delusions of grandeur, or that I am an unfortunate who lives amid squalor of spiritual blight, allow me to point out that both Brian and Suzanne possess a wealth of virtues as well as the relatively few faults that I have here enumerated. My reason for focusing on their shortcomings is that I was writing about challenges that we are facing as a family and the grace that God has shown us for dealing with them. By contrast, my reason for focusing on my own virtues is that I feel a need to suggest that I possess some virtues along with the many faults that provide most of the subject matter for this ’blog. Also, I desired to chronicle the progress I am making with my parents (in particular, my father) in demonstrating that I indeed possess the wherewithal to “succeed in life”, a fact which they have openly questioned.

Indeed, God has reprimanded me several times this year for focusing on my and others’ shortcomings rather than “think on” such things as are “pure, just” or “...of good report”. He has similarly exhorted me to control my emotions: “Don’t let your heart be troubled or afraid; I leave such peace with you as the world cannot give.” I confess that, in 2008, I have allowed my heart to be troubled and afraid. I further confess that I have not allowed His peace “that surpasses all understanding” to rest on me. Instead, I have depended on my parents’ support and chastised my wife for failing to affirm my good qualities when she was only picking up on the fear and disquiet that I was telegraphing to her from my own lack of faith in God.

Enough of last year’s failures’ already! Looking forward to 2009, let this be the year that I get my balls back! Let this be the year that I man up and take on the demons that are holding my family in bondage! Let this be the year that I not only prophesy buy pray to the full extent of the talent God has given me! Let this be the year that I muster the courage to get up in front of other people and sing the songs God has placed in my heart! Let this be the year that I stop making excuses and pursue the theological education that will enable me to write knowledgeably and authoritatively about spiritual issues in the power of God’s holy Word! Let this be the year, to make a long prayer shorter, that I start to walk the walk that I’ve been talking about for the last three decades. Let this be the year that I actually begin to “faith” in Jesus Christ instead of simply preaching to the choir that I believe in Him! Let this be the year that Michael Patrick King becomes a Christian! Amen!