Hope in the New Year

A New Year greets us! A year set with all kinds of possibilities.  Are you looking forward to all the possibilities?   I know I am.  I so much am looking to more hope in the New Year. 

It’s been a hard year, hasn’t it?   With Covid and all the stress that it has produced for us.   Elections, fires, natural disasters, and more.  2020 has certainly packed a punch.  

As we’ve gone through this year with all the challenges it has presented us,  I’ve noticed a few things.  People have struggled and rejoiced. Even though it’s been a rough year filled with tension (lost jobs, economic fallout, death, depression, missed friends, and more), there’s been lots of good as well.   New ministries and businesses started reaching out to each other, family time exploded, and more pets found homes. 

I’ve been going through the book of Proverbs lately, and I have been introduced to the two sides of God.  The love of God and the hate of God. It is so easy to see the love of God and to not really see that God has a deep hatred of some things. 

Ergo, people often don’t talk about God’s hatred. God’s hatred is based on the things we do that aren’t good for us and don’t show his glory. It’s so important to see both sides of him. If you recognize that God exemplifies both love and hate, you can see hope in a different light.  

For instance, God’s hatred gives us limitations, a pattern of life to avoid,   The hope of limitations (avoiding the things that God hates such as lying, pride, running to evil, or being a fight starter), and the hope of reconciliation (in seeing and accepting God’s love through Jesus his Son). 

The limitations give us hope as they are specific about what we should avoid.  Do you want to do something that is an abomination to God?  Reconciliation gives us a way back to God.  He loves us so much that he’s given us a way back to him—two sides of God, both providing hope to us.  
Just as there are two sides to God, there is more than one way to see our children, our homeschooling journey, our curriculum, and our choices.    There’s a flip side to every coin we are tossed.   

That stubborn child will turn into a determined adult, confident in life choices.  The difficult curriculum will teach you to know your children better so you can get material better suited or the skills to rework it into something useable.  The uncertain, needing momma child, through example and guidance, will become a child with soft-heart sensitive to the needs of others and willing to meet them due to good examples given.  For every yes we give to an activity, it’s a no to something else and an opportunity to teach our children about making choices.   

How do we look at what we see in life?  Do we only see the easy-to-grasp part, or do we look deeper? Let’s teach our children, our students, how to see both sides of the coin.   

A positive can always be found in the situations we find ourselves in. What new limits and adventures face us in the new year?  What lessons are waiting for us right around the corner?  Let’s find hope in a New Year… so many possibilities await! 

—oOo—

Thank you to Annette @ A Net in Time for writing this post. Homeschooling mom of a single lad, raisers of rabbits, blogger, influencer, poet, and a person of faith. You can find her on Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, and MeWe.   She blogs about homeschooling, faith, and books.