The first day of the rest of your life ...

These are the lyrics from Matt Maher's song "Hold us together", one of my current favorites. It has been a while since I posted anything on this blog, so a drug induced post on the last day of one of the biggest years of my life seemed appropriate.

2011 has been a year of great change in my life. I celebrated my first anniversary a few days ago and am officially out of the honeymoon period. Over the years I have heard various married couple tell me that marriage truly shows you have selfish you are/have been and 2011 showed me how true that adage was. But here we are at the end of 2011 without killing each other and surprisingly more in love with each other - a fact that still continues to amaze me.

This was also the year that my body emphatically told me that I am old, and even though my spirit is willing the flesh is weak. I have spent the last 6 weeks mostly stuck to the couch with a banged up knee and will possibly be spending the next 30 weeks in rehab. The silver lining has been that I have been able to spend a lot more time with the better half while being waited on hand and foot. I am hoping that this rehab period would give me enough time to be reconciled to the fact that my body is middle aged even though my mind refuses to get over the 20s.

As I sit here feeling like I can fly (These pain killers rock), I can only think of how wonderful and blessed my life has been and how Jesus has been with me every step of the way, through the ups and downs, the victories and defeats, the terminal cancer and the marriage, the debilitative shy formative years and the gregarious 'crazy redneck' 20s. I cannot imagine a life without him being a integral part of me.

When I look back on the last three decades of my life, there is so much that I need to be thankful for. The only reason I did not turn out to be a maniacal psychopathic serial killer was the love filled family environment that I grew up in and I am not just talking about my parents and siblings but the wonderful extended family that would be the envy of the world. And inspite of all the fights and tears, I know they have my back and that they have and will always be the foundation on which God built my life. I am proud of them as they have been of me all these years. My parents have been God's guiding light in all my paths and the main reason for being on the straight and narrow, while my sisters have been God's support for my life.

I know that it might sound conceited and a cliche but I probably have some of the best and craziest friends in the world. And even though some of them are weird according to the world's standards, they have been the perfect tools in the hands of my maker who is working on making me a masterpiece. Some of them have been in my life for decades and some for only a short time; some are not there anymore but God put them all in my life at the right time. Friends have been one of the biggest blessings of my life and the cause of the richness of my life.

As I look forward to this new year and the rest of my life be it a day or 50 years, I can only think of each day per the title of this post. God has finally found and put into play his most important tool in my shaping and oh what a tool it is. God has found my perfect counterpoint and I can only imagine the great things that he has in store for us and how amazing the masterpiece is going to look like when He is done with it.

I wish everyone reading this a joyful and blessed new year 2012. May God make His face shine on you and may all his promises be fulfilled in your life and if you haven't tasted His grace may this be the year you do.