Welcome 2025 With Hope
As we prepare to turn the page on 2024, I’ve been trying to replace order to my house. The kitchen floor is sticky-free, the mountain size plate of Christmas cookies has dwindled, and I’ve retired my black sequence (and very fun) pants until next year. It is time for pause, and time for reflection despite the fact that I will definitely allow myself a few more days of cookie indulgence. After all, the calendar page hasn’t turned quite yet.
For our family, this past year has brought immeasurable joy. Over the pre-holiday span of 5 weeks, we welcomed our 11th and 12th grandchildren, both boys and most certainly best friends forever. We came to know our hearts would expand back in April when the moon totally eclipsed the sun. April 8, 2024 will remain forever etched in our family story as the day of big and glorious wonder. My husband and I were surrounded by our entire family. Each of us wore those now infamous eye protective glasses as we squeezed into lawn chairs gazing up towards the drama unfolding in the sky. We watched and waited for the moon to become one with the sun. Literally minutes before that moment of totality, my son and his wife received lab results which confirmed without a doubt their pregnancy. Little did we know that coincidentally, our younger daughter and her husband had also just confirmed their pregnancy. Our awareness of how our family would grow will forever be framed by that day when celestial astonishment superseded anything we’d ever witnessed before.
This day of grand joy, for us, was even more awesome because of the context of our collective delight. Suffice it to say, as is so often the case, moments of sheer bliss are made that much more marvelous when viewed in a larger context. The road to big happiness is often paved with heartache, loss, or difficult challenge. Isn’t it true for so many that gladness and despair share the same dwelling space? Sometimes sadness can feel suffocating, but when pearls of joy are revealed, unleashed exhilaration is laced with extra appreciation.
No doubt we’ve all traversed this past year living within the vast continuum of life experiences. Not everyone will greet 2025 with such tangible manifestations of hope and love as we have with our sweet little grandsons. Many are in the throes of hardship. I can only hope a day will come soon when those now suffering can rest in the reassurance of joy once again. One year ago, I had to reset a place where faith and hopefulness breathed upon my heavy heart. Today, I relish in these threaded moments where gratitude was called upon every day to illuminate the path forward.
My family will never again have Christmas joy so directly linked with heavenly cosmic marvel. Holding my two tiny grandsons is proof that goodness can, and often does penetrate through times when hope is hard to come by. My challenge is to remember with clarity this extraordinary time in our family story. Like all life chapters paved with sweetness, I hope to carry this lesson of faith with me as we begin a new road in 2025. And for those hurting, I will continue to reset trust for a wonder-filled day to come.