Praise God that we will be celebrating a new year together this week!
There is so much to recall from this past year that can be valuable for us to put in the perspective both of hindsight and of looking forward into a new year. May the Lord bless your reflection on the past and help you to look into the future with the hope that God wants us to have from being alive in Jesus through baptism.
In many ways we were spared until the very last couple of months of this year here in Guernsey County what people in other parts of the world had dealt with earlier.
In fact, for me it wasn’t until just this past week that I had to be tested for the coronavirus. Thankfully the first part of the test – the rapid antigen test – was negative. That’s the one where the probe takes a sample from deep in the nose! I had never realized how long the nasal cavity is! As of Wednesday, December 23rd, when this letter was written, I have not received the results of the second test, the one that is less invasive. Lord willing, that second one will have the same result as the antigen test.
While being tested for the coronavirus, the nurses and physician noted that some of the “symptoms” I reported were from having high blood pressure and an elevated heart rate. Yikes! If nothing else, that was a fortunate discovery from the need for a coronavirus test. That means the new year’s resolutions of losing weight and adjusting exercise and eating habits that I’ve been making in a relatively half-hearted way these past few years is necessary now.
As I mentioned a few years ago in a letter like this, thank you for many holiday treats as gifts, but please don’t be offended if I don’t consume as many of them into the future. I have been prescribed a blood pressure medication, which is something I never thought I would ever need. As a skinny runner throughout high school, college and adult years, I never imagined weighing more than 200 pounds as I do today. And blood pressure medicine: my blood pressure has usually been low if anything. Anyway, the one positive side of this is that I literally get to take a “chill pill”! Many of us have benefitted from good coaches in life and this prescription to lose weight, etc., is like that.
This new year begins with plenty of things crossing over from this past year, including how this year’s St. Benedict School Auction will be conducted. Please see the information in another part of this bulletin about how it will be conducted as a weeklong online auction. As different as it will be for many people, it looks like the auctioneer conducting it will make the items available to thousands of his regular customers, which will hopefully be a substantial boost and enable the auction to be a necessary success.
May the Lord continue to bless us with joy and peace and His Christmas light into the New Year as disciples of Jesus and to help us to be always ready for the gift of eternal life in Heaven!