...early morning coffees...watching DVD's...shopping for last minute "bits" to add to pressies and the Christmas meal...having "when we" times when we talked and laughed about our growing up years... meeting people who quickly became new friends...delicious meals...excellent wine...Christmas cake...ice skating...walk in the forest...and then a total celebration with a group of friends on new years eve as we toasted my brother, Kevin, on his birthday and then at midnight gathering together to worship and pray.

...what a privilege it is to be alive at such a time as this!!!

I felt God gave me the phrase "High Adventure" for 2007 - not too sure what that means right now...but hey...I have the whole year to go on a voyage of discovery and the great thing is that HE IS WITH ME.

This afternoon, when I was thinking about this "High Adventure", I remembered a poem, a dear friend of mine, Bev Murrill wrote and sent to me a few years back... enjoy!

Winds of Change

Feel the winds of change blowing across the season.
Feel the gentle stirring of your mind
as the early breeze lifts its strands
like the threads of your hair,
and breathes its freshness into your thoughts.

Feel it brush past your cheeks,
and let your nostrils draw in a new scent,
secret perfumes that you've never smelled before.
Allow your lungs to fill with the strength and hope
that fresh winds always bring.
Lift your arms and dance,
because those who embrace the new season
experience deep and stunning joy.

The winds of change begin as a breeze,
at first almost imperceptible,
but there are those whose awareness is aroused
to hear the Spirit of God early.........
and He calls us to respond, setting our hearts as sails to transport us into the new day.

There is great security in agreeing to His plans,
because as the season draws closer
to break over our lives like a storm,
we would turn and run, hide from the power of the change,
were it not that we had already set our sails
to catch the wind of His purposes.

Don't be afraid.
This is not a time to let fear cripple the future.
These winds, this rain, the churning of the seas,
are merely the means to enlarge your heart,
to make your sails more seaworthy.
This is what fashions sailors out of those who would,
by choice, cling to the grey and misty lands of familiarity, comfort, experience.........
and the life that used to be.

The mystery,
the vast and spacious freedom in God's plan,
belongs only to those who will trade their own plans, their own wise and well honed strategies for success,
for abandonment to a life
that was never thought of, never hoped for,
that was never before given room,
except maybe in the deepest recesses of our thinking,
where madness also dwells.


Feel the winds of God.
Feel them as they play with your thoughts
and cause that which clothes you to be blown away.
This is not a season for clutching your own plans
tighter around you as you struggle
against the power of the wind.
This is the season of release,
for letting go of that which has held us
captive to our own narrow, shallow vision.
This is the season for the abandonment of self
to the winds of change......

and then............ let's see what God will do.