First Friday of 2025!

And we begin this first Friday of 2025 with this beautiful picture from the John Sloane Country Seasons 2025 calendar for January:

"A New Day Dawning"

Oh, I love that picture! That little girl out in the snowy sunshine encapsulates my joy as I see God's beauty and handiwork each new day. (I'm just glad I don't have to go out in the snow to see it! LOL)

Instead I step out on my front porch in the warm sunshine, even though today it is 36 degrees!!!

This was actually yesterday morning. The sun isn't quite up yet this morning as I write this! and it's still too cold to think about going out there!

And this was on my little tea pot devotional calendar for yesterday morning...I got busy yesterday and never got around to writing, so I'm a bit behind!

Rejoice!  Even my cup of tea tells me to have JOY:

Gingerbread Joy tea...so of course Mr. Gingerbread Man had to come along...no that isn't a real cookie...it's a tree ornament, but that's the best I could do for Mr. Gingerbread Man today! LOL. He's rejoicing because I can't catch him and eat him! LOL. 

Remember this little story: 

"Run, run, run as fast as you can, You'll never catch me, I'm the gingerbread man. I ran from the baker and his wife too. You'll never catch me, not any of you."

The Gingerbread Man

In keeping with my new "One Word"  "WISDOM", for 2025, this popped up on Facebook yesterday from our local Christian radio station, 91.3 HOPEfm:

And here it is, the 3rd day of the New Year already...

Psalm 90 starts out this way:

"1 Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.

2 Before the mountains were brought forth,

Or ever You had formed the earth and the world,

Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God."

When I stop and think about this world, and all that is in it...and that before any of this that we know was ever even formed, God was already there...He created this world for us to dwell in, to grow and live and love and also to learn to love and worship Him, our Creator and Lord. As we grow and live and love, we should also be growing in our faith and wisdom. Our experiences in life, whether bad or good, help to shape and mold us into the people God intends for us to be.

The latter part of Psalm 90 concludes the thoughts of the Psalmist (in this case the Bible says it is a "Prayer of Moses, a Man of God") this way:

13 

"13 Return, O Lord!

How long?

And have compassion on Your servants.

14 Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy,

That we may rejoice and be glad all our days!

15 Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us,

The years in which we have seen evil.

16 Let Your work appear to Your servants,

And Your glory to their children.

17 And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,

And establish the work of our hands for us;

Yes, establish the work of our hands."

The New Year has not started out very well in our nation...the horrific crime that took place in New Orleans, and then also in other places, Las Vegas, New York, and around the world...our world is in chaos and groaning for Christ's return.  

Even Moses cried out for the Lord to return and have compassion on His servants, that "we may rejoice and be glad all our days!" He asked the Lord to "let Your work appear to Your servants, and Your glory to their children..."   Yes, we want to see God working in our midst and for God's glory to be revealed to our children and our grandchildren and beyond...we want them to know Christ and to see His glory in the world today. We want them to have hope and to know that God is with them no matter what is happening in the world. That is the message of Christmas...Jesus is "Emmanuel", which means, God With Us.  God became flesh and came to earth so that we could know Him and also know His love and salvation, and that gives us great hope in a world of darkness.  

John 1:14 NKJV

"14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

I like that last verse of Psalm 90 especially:  17 "Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us; Yes, establish the work of our hands."

My prayer today is that God's beauty would rest upon me, and that whatever I am learning from Him would be established and applied to those around me...my friends, family, neighbors and those who are friends here in Blogland and beyond.  May these words shared from the heart of God rest upon each of us, and may the "beauty of the Lord our God be upon us" as we progress progress through this brand new year...a clean slate, and open book waiting to be filled with new experiences, new joys, and a heart filled with wisdom.  Amen.

Our new Thomas Kinkade calendar for 2025 starts us out with this beautiful snowy "Lamplight Manor" picture...

And that verse above is certainly true, God's Holy Spirit will teach us all things...and I welcome His presence and work in my heart and life in this new year...helping me to grow some good fruit:

That's all the calendars I have to show you for now. We are going to meet up with family today to have a belated Christmas, however my sister and her daughter are both sick with bad colds, so they won't be able to come after all.  We will be meeting with my hubby's brother and his family, and they are picking up gifts from my sister to bring to us, so I "expect" there will be another new Teapot calendar coming in that batch of gifts, as that is my sister's annual gift to me...unless something has changed...I will find out later today...maybe I shouldn't count my chickens before they are hatched! LOL. I am sorry they won't be able to join us, but I hope maybe sometime in the near future we will get together.  Colds and flu are running rampant this year, and I sure don't want to catch that...I'm like the "Gingerbread Man"...old cold and flu you can't catch me! (I pray!!!)

Okay, I have to go, or we will never make it on time to go pick up our kids and take them with us to the restaurant where we are meeting the rest of the family for lunch. More to come later...

Happy New Year!! One Word for 2025

Happy New Year!  We've turned the page onto a brand new year: 2025!  We are already one quarter of the way through this new century! And it is also the year that I will reach my three quarters of a century mark, but not until September, so let's don't rush things too much! LOL. 

Were you awake at midnight last night when the New Year rolled in?  We were sound asleep in our beds, until we were awakened by the booming of fireworks somewhere out there, so we both woke up at the same time and said "Happy New Year", and then we promptly went right back to sleep! Sounds like a perfect way to usher in the New Year to me! LOL.  

So I woke up this morning bright and early and ready to embrace a brand new day and a brand new year! As I started to prepare my cup of tea and come sit down here at the computer to write this first post of the new year, I thought, wait, I need to open up our new calendars!  Well, I did manage to open up this one, and it got me off on a little trail to set the stage just right for this new day...

(This Susan Branch calendar has become an annual gift from a dear friend! Thank you dear friend! You know who you are!)

And as I read this sweet little story on the first page for the month of January, I thought to myself, "Oh, I love that scene and scenario!  I think I need to do just that right now!"   

And although I don't have any snowfall to watch outside my window, and it is still dark outside anyway as I am writing this, I set up the best "window" to my world that I could for now...A great blue heron out on Still Waters Pond...

And I found a beloved old chipped blue china teapot, and poured my steaming tea into a pink and white flowered cup, but I didn't add any honey or cream...just a scant teaspoon of sugar, and I carried it to the smallest room of the house, my "Room With a View", and I settled by the window to watch the...well, darkness outside right now, but to watch the pictures of birds on Still Waters Pond scroll by on my computer "window"...

"When little things are so nice, she thought, they become big things."

I like that thought, and so now I want to think about another little thing that is also a big thing...

It started out yesterday by reading this daily devotional for December 31. Look at the title:

And in the last paragraph, it says, "Solomon's advice is that we listen to wisdom, apply it, and lear as we go. Then we will have understanding; we will find the right path with wisdom in our hearts and joy from knowledge."

I had already read this the other day night and shared the verses in this post: https://pamelasopenwindow.blogspot.com/2024/12/tuesday-4-new-years-eve.html, but for some reason I left off the last two verses, and really wasn't paying close enough attention to the "one word" that kept repeating itself over and over again...

Proverbs 2:1-11 NKJV

"The Value of Wisdom"

"1 My son, if you receive my words,

And treasure my commands within you,

2 So that you incline your ear to wisdom,

And apply your heart to understanding;

3 Yes, if you cry out for discernment,

And lift up your voice for understanding,

4 If you seek her as silver,

And search for her as for hidden treasures;

5 Then you will understand the fear of the Lord,

And find the knowledge of God.

6 For the Lord gives wisdom;

From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;

7 He stores up sound wisdom for the upright;

He is a shield to those who walk uprightly;

8 He guards the paths of justice,

And preserves the way of His saints.

9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice,

Equity and every good path.

10 When wisdom enters your heart,

And knowledge is pleasant to your soul,

11 Discretion will preserve you;

Understanding will keep you..."

And then I noticed this little devotional calendar that my sweet DIL Rose gave me last year, and I flipped it over to the front cover in preparation for starting it over for the new year, and what did I see???

There is also a companion daily devotional booklet that comes in the mail every month (this is free of charge, but donations are always welcome) from the same place, "In Touch Ministries", from the writings of the Rev. Charles F. Stanley, who passed on to glory a year or so ago...

And this is the reading for December 31, 2024:

And let's pay attention to the last couple of paragraphs:

Do you see it?  

"Looking at the past year, can you see His wisdom in leading you to make right decisions? Make 2025 a year of obedience. Choose to trust Him, and receive the blessings He wants to give you."

Like, being blessed by looking out the window to see what beauties God has in store for me to see, and there's this family of the Black Bellied Whistling Ducks...they just landed in this tree out on the island of Still Waters Pond just as I looked out the window!  (this was yesterday)

Not that this a great example of "wisdom", but it is an example of lifting up my eyes to see what God wants me to see each day, and not going around with blinders on!!

It is a reminder to me to pay attention to the details of life going on around me all the time...we may be missing so many blessings by not opening our eyes and ears to see and hear all that God has in store for us, to bless us and give us His joy and love and peace...

I told you that God would lead me to whatever the new "One Word" for 2025 would be, and that He would do it by January 1st.  To tell the truth, I've been scrambling and wondering and nothing seemed to be coming together until last night when I read those verses in that little book, and then I discovered that same word "WISDOM", popping up in everything I touched.  Suddenly it was as if it had bright flashing lights all over it and it seemed to be calling out to me and saying, "Here I am! Please pay attention! I've been here all along, but you just weren't paying close enough attention to what clues I was giving you!"  Wisdom! Of course!  Oh how I need this word in my life!  And not just the word itself, but its full depth of meaning...I need wisdom!   You'd think at my age I'd have plenty of wisdom to go around, but I have found that the older I get the more situations come up in which I need more and more wisdom. There are health concerns, financial, physical and mental, emotional, and spiritual needs. And not just for me, but for my spouse and my family as well. We are all connected in one way or another and I need wisdom to deal with all of the above. I need God's wisdom...I need to seek His wisdom and not just try to figure out things on my own, which I am prone to do.  

Oh, Lord, I have a feeling we are going on another adventure this year, and I am going to need to be relying on YOUR wisdom more and more. This aging process is a big deal, and it takes wisdom to navigate so many decisions and issues that come up.  It takes wisdom to know when to act and when to stop and just wait and listen for Your guidance along the way.  I pray that You will give me wisdom for each step of the way, and help me to be patient and wait on YOU for the right direction to go before I ever take the first step.  Thank You, Lord, for I believe that You are always right there ready to share Your wisdom and knowledge with us. We just have to pay attention and then obey.  Help me, Lord! Amen.

Here are some links to my previous years of "One Words", in case you are interested, or are still looking for that special word for yourself this year. Feel free to use one of mine! You may learn some things from it that I never discovered, and you can share them with us!

One Word 2024: Strength

One Word 2023: Listen

One Word 2022: Delight

One Word 2021: Believe

One Word 2020: Joyful

One Word 2019: Abundance, and this link contains the links to all previous years, which includes the following words: 2012 was my first year doing the One Word, and it was "Hope", 

2013: Presence,  2014: Strengthen, 2015: Focus, 2016: Grace, 2017: Rest,  2018: Renew

On the other side of the pond yesterday morning was this big flock of buzzards, sunning themselves in the tops of the tree. Maybe they are waiting to clean up the messes that are left over from 2024 and help give us a clean slate to begin our journey into 2025.  

Maybe they are a reminder to us to let go of the past and start off fresh...a brand new day, a brand new year.  Don't look back, we aren't going that way!  Look forward, and fix your eyes on Jesus,

Hebrews 12:1-2  NKJV

The Race of Faith

"1  Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, 

let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, 

and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 

2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, 

and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Happy New Year my friends!

May it be a year of great wisdom, joy, and peace for all.

(BTW, I will do the rest of the new calendars for 2025 roll call in the next post)