day three: trust God for your kids in the new year

January always affords us the opportunity to "start anew." The opportunity to right the things that we felt were wrong in the previous year; the chance to do better, be better, love better...and parent better.

It's no wonder with all the excitement and anticipation of a new year that we don't wish each January that we just knew a  little of what that would hold. That we just knew some of the things that would come our children's ways. That way, we reason, we could be a little more prepared, a little less worried about their futures.

Parenting is filled with wonder...good wonders...and the times we wonder what is next for our children. Worry seems to come easily, especially, to us mothers. Daily turning our cares for our children over to the Lord is a daily exercise that would benfit all of us "worrisome" types of moms.

"The Gate of the Year," a poem written in 1908 by Minnie Louise Haskins, sums up the truth about standing at the gate of a new year--and wishing we knew what it held for our families. We don't need a heads up about what this year will hold as much as we need to hold on to the one in control of this new year.




                                        "The Gate of the Year"

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year,

"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown."

And he replied, "Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God;

That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!"