Pray4America (part 11) - New Year Reset

NASA/GEMINI VII - EARTH-SKY VIEW 

To the good old days! 
That is a good modern paraphrase of Auld Lang Syne.   [reference:  History and Meaning of the Song, Auld Lang Syne - Yahoo Voices - voices.yahoo.com]
The lyrics and the tune have an interesting history.   Auld Lang Syne  is from Scottish poem written in 1788 by Robert Burns and later the words were set to the music of a folk song.   [reference:  The History and Words of Auld Lang Syne — The Official Gateway to Scotland]

Universally sung as New Year’s Eve turns into the New Year at the stroke of midnight,  no doubt, it will be sung, again, around the world as 2013 rolls over to 2014.

A beautiful rendition of this song is performed in this link below:

(reference: http://youtu.be/zrucR4cQgIw)

The New Year can bring a sense of optimism, a sense of starting over.  Resetting the calendar can mean a reset of our lives.  As to the good old days, it is a time to put the past behind us and press ahead into the future - the New Year.

In the New Testament, St. Paul exhorts us, too, to put the past behind us and press ahead and look up as expressed in this advice:

Brothers and sisters, 
I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.
But one thing I do:
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
I press on toward the goal to win the prize
for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:13-14 (NIV)

This past year has had many troubling events, its share of tragedies.  But 2013 has had its triumphs as well as good memories.  Though there still may be dark days ahead in 2014, we have the promise that the future will be glorious in a new world where the sorrow of the past will be forgotten:
  

See, I will create new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,  
nor will they come to mind.

Isaiah 65:17 (NIV)

Meanwhile, as we press ahead and make resolutions for 2014, may one of our New Year's resolution be to lift up one another and -

Pray for America

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Previous posts in this series:

Pray4America (part 1) - National Day of Prayer (2012)

Pray4America (part 2) - FDR's prayer on D-Day (2012)

Pray4America (part 3) - FDR's Flag Day prayer - June 14, 1942 (2012)

Pray4America (part 4) - It's a Wonderful Life, America (2012)

Pray4America (part 5) - United we stand? (2012)

Pray4America (part 6) - Christmas in Iran 1980 (2012)

Pray4American (part 7) - For such a time as this (2013)

Pray4America (part 8) - Fear no evil (2013)

Pray4America (part 9) - America, the Beautiful - 1893 to 2013 (2013)

Pray4America (part 10) - Real Hope for America  (2013)

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Photo from:  NASA/GEMINI VII - EARTH-SKY VIEW 

New Year's Resolutions and Blue Monday - the cure

Happy New Year! As many reckon, we are entering a new decade - the teens. Resolutions will be made, and psychologically, we all have another chance to start over again with a clean slate.

There are many great New Year Quotations about putting behind the Old Year and looking ahead to the New Year: www.quotegarden.com/new-year.html

From this high comes the low when reality bites, again. Resolutions are broken. The memories of Christmas and New Years parties fade. Gatherings with family and friends end. Debts hit. Winter sets in. We settle back into the same old same old. To make it worse, there are no established holidays to look forward to in the near future.

Then depression can hit, most likely on Blue Monday.

The date of this emotional crash has been calculated in the "Blue Monday" formula . (Yes, there is an app for that.) This year it's January 25, 2010.

How to cope with Blue Monday? A ton of advice is out there in cyberspace, but the best advice I found is from the Good Book:

13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Phillipians 3 (KJV)

So beat back Blue Monday with these New Year's Resolutions: FRP - Forget, Reach, Press
1. Forget the things which are behind
2. Reach forward to things which are before
3. Press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling in God in Christ Jesus

I must have been over my blue Monday when I penned this poem in the winter of 1976. (Yes, I know this dates me.)

Success

Don't be afraid to fail

Or your dreams you'll cease to strive

Heed not the mockings of those

Who really are not alive

Look not to the side for direction

To the lamb-skinned wolves nearby

Who say that they do speak the truth

But devour with a lie

Look above for your direction

To the star in the sky

And don't be afraid to fail

And be not afraid to try!

from: smithsk.com/philosophies_success.htm

To my writer friends, keep on writing! To my readers, thank you for your encouragement and support. May God bless you all in your calling for 2010.


photo from:
everystockphoto: happy new year