You Crown The Year With Your Goodness

photo and table-setting courtesy of my sister Sarah

photo and table-setting courtesy of my sister Sarah

"You crown the year with Your goodness, and your paths drip with abundance." Psalm 65: 11

Right now, I am exactly twenty minutes away from the stroke of 12. 

So, Happy New Year, dear friends! 

'Tis hard to believe that we are on the eve of a new year! For me, 2012 has been a difficult year in many ways yet it was also a beautiful year... an amazing year, and one filled with the evidence of God's faithfulness in my life, and a fullness of His joy and hope. It was a year filled with love and promise and fellowship. Despite some trials, I always knew that God was there with me. He has showered me with tender mercies and blessings and the comfort of His love. I underwent a lot of growth in 2012 (not physically  for I am no taller!) but learnt a lot, only to realize there is SO MUCH MORE YET TO LEARN. This year, I discovered a new depth in my love of writing and wrote and published my first ever short story, A Love that Never Fails, and advanced in my writing skills and intellectual reading (a little... ^.^)! It has been the year I turned seventeen (which I'm loving already!), it has been the year I have discovered J.R.R. Tolkien and Rosemary Sutcliff and more of C. S. Lewis and Abigail J. Hartman and Jennifer Freitag (which makes any year illustrious in itself!), it is the year I joined NaNoWriMo for the first time and laid aside 'The Crown of Life' for a time (sniff sniff), and chose to write 'A Love that Never Fails' into a novel, it is the year I attended writer's workshops, studied such amazing things at school (and... not.so.amazing.things too...) etc, etc! There have been sad and difficult moments too, like the passing away of my Grandpa (I miss him a lot!) or the stress of schoolwork :p. I had to give up some things this year, some dreams and friendships... but I was abundantly blessed by others. The blessing of family and the love we have for one another... the spiritual and physical blessings we've received and miracles we've experienced,  God's loving hand on our lives, and the new friends we've formed has all been a part of the legacy of 2012. I can say confidently, that the Lord has been faithful through it and upholded my steps so I would not utterly fall. 

I thank the Lord Jesus for all He has done for me and my family this year, and also I am so grateful for the friends He's brought in my life... friends like you, dear readers of Fullness of Joy! You've all been such a blessing to me!! ♥ You have encouraged me all along the way this year, especially in my writing journey, through comments, e-mails and sweet messages. I am so thankful!!

I am very excited for this new year and for all that God will do in it. It is all a new page, crisp and white like the sheets of my Christmas diary, a new chapter in your life and mine untold. I wonder how the story goes on, but I trust the Great Author in whatever He writes... though I may not now understand it all, yet it is all being written and molded by His loving Hands in love: one day the canvas shall be unfolded and we shall see that 'Jesus is Victor'! My sister Sarah wrote a lovely little message for the new year and I happily got permission to quote her! 'Ahead is a new year - still a blank sheet on which a new chapter of the story of my life and yours are still to be written, a clean canvas on which a beautiful design is still to be woven! He is not finished. My prayer is that I would be a ready pencil in His hand and a knotless thread in His skillful hands this year. May it be our prayer - all of us!'

"Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen, and called its name Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” 1 Samuel 7: 12

♥ So... hello, 2013!! ♥