It’s the last day. The final day. The end of another year. 2014 is nearly toast. You might be reflecting on your year too on this New Year’s Eve. Some of you can’t wait to push the reset button. It’s been a challenging year for you. I’ve had those kind of years too. But this time I can say, 2014 was a year of blessings.
I will share a few of those blessings in this final blog post of the year:
This blog is a blessing. I just received a summary from WordPress about my blog statistics during 2014. I’m blessed to see the potential impact I’ve had inspiring transformissional living in others. There have been around 11,000 views. The busiest day of the year was February 14. Interestingly enough, the top five posts for the year were in this order:
1 – Valentine’s Day
3 – The Fear of a Pointless Life
4 – Gratitude Unlocks the Fullness of Life
5 – Sabbatical: Vision Becomes Reality
It’s also interesting to note there were blog visitors from 136 countries. The three top countries were the United States (7,805), United Kingdom (400), and India (340). I am intrigued to see, for example, that I had 308 visitors from Brazil, 154 from Australia, 42 from Russia, 22 from Saudi Arabia and 14 from Turkey. Writing a blog certainly has the potential to leave an impact around the world. And here’s the link if you wish to take a closer look at the details of the report.
Our marriage is a blessing. This week, my wife Linda and I celebrated 40 years of marriage. I’ll write more later about the kind of hard work it takes to grow a healthy marriage that lasts. But, I’m so blessed with a great marriage. For the first time ever in four decades, we spent 130 contiguous days together 24/7 while on our sabbatical. And the miracle is this, we came away loving each other more than ever!
Our sabbatical was a blessing. Linda and I received a fully-funded four-month sabbatical through the Lilly Endowment/National Clergy Renewal Program. Designing it. Planning it. Executing the plan. And experiencing the result of the plan was glorious. We were filled with gratitude each and every day as we lived the four R’s.
Our family is a blessing. Twin grandchildren turning one year old. Our nine year old starting a full-time gifted program in a new school. Our five year old starting Pre-K. As a part of our sabbatical, all of our children, their spouses and grandchildren spent a week with us on the Oregon Coast for legacy week. Even an extremely difficult start to the year with our son’s addiction to a mix of alcohol and over-the-counter cold medicines leading to an all-time low, resulted in a huge blessing. He was introduced to the caring and skilled team at The Shores Recovery and Treatment Center and experienced a lot of grace-filled healing and freedom as a result of his stay there.
Our church family is a blessing. Being away from leadership and ministry at Cape Christian for our sabbatical gave us a much deeper appreciation for what we founded and developed over the last 28 years. Excellent young leaders, people who love and respect us and a strong organizational commitment to transform the city through healing our homes is not to be taken lightly.
2014 was a blessed year. We are so blessed to be living our legacy. I can’t wait to see what 2015 will bring! Happy New Year!
QUESTION: What were some of your blessings this past year? I’d love to hear them in the comment section below. Thanks!
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