Future

It is the first day of a New Year.  Where I am?  Where I am going?  What is happening?  Physically I know.  In any other perspective, metaphorically, spiritually, or mentally, I have no idea.
It is easy to whinge.  Life is not fair.  The worst aspects of life, uncertainty, fear, and a lingering sense of aloneness, haunt each in unique ways during the darkness of the night.  There are days when one struggles to understand the reasons for yesterday's choices.  In the present, uncertainties will often dominate, even stomp on the very idea of Hope.  If one looks to the future, it is as if one is sitting in a Billie Holiday set, listening to the angst and sadness drip through her voice and into your soul. 
In this context, there are three things I find myself holding onto.  First, I find myself acknowledging the questions at hand.  I face the hard reality of where I stand.  “You fill the place of worship with your whining and sniveling because you don't get what you want from God.  Do you know why?”  (Malachi 2.13)  The blunt answer is the many of the causes of today's headache are the result of actions, choices, and decisions I own.
Second, I fall back into the reality that I am not the first to be in this situation.  God has watched many before and with me fall into a trap of our making and is prepared.  I need not hind anything because God knows it all.  In this knowledge, God's arms are open and extended.  I have a place of refuge.  I do belong.  God has chosen you.  God has chosen me.
Third, what happens next is unwritten.  We are the authors of our lives.  Divinity offers us a choice.  We can turn to a God willing to live in our lives, engaged in the intimate details of life.  We can go it on our own, making the best of the situation at hand.
I wish for you and yours the best God offers.  Compassion, grace, and mercy will always win.