New Year's Resolve

While we were at Balgal Beach, we visited our good friends B & E.  Don't they look content and relaxed?  It was good to catch up and see them so unstressed as 2009 was not a very easy year for them.  In fact I don't know if I could say that they have had an easy year since I've known them.  They've done things like going off to a remote area of the Philippines for months at a time to help with language translation so that the folk there could eventually read the Bible in their own language.  They've battled illness and advancing age and belt-tightening due to the GFC eating away at their superanuation and we all had problems with Biblically illiterate egomaniacs in church and parachurch heirarchies.  That's not new.  I believe it's been happening for about 2000 years.  But not to B and E for 2000 years.  They are not quite that old. 
They can still smile.
They shared this with us, so I thought it was worth sharing with everyone who visits my blog -

Recipe For A Happy New Year

Author Unknown

To leave the old with a burst of song

To recall the right and forgive the wrong;

To forget the thing that binds you fast

To the vain regrets of the year that's past;

To have the strength to let go your hold

Of the not worthwhile of the days grown old,

To dare to go forth with a purpose true,

To the unknown task of the year that's new;

To help your brother along the road

To do his work and lift his load;

To add your gift to the world's good cheer,

Is to have and to give a Happy New Year.

 

Happy New Year 2010