For many of us looking for last minute Christmas gifts, calendars are perfect. Who doesn’t like unwrapping and opening a brand new, clean  calendar,  turning the pages from January to December 2024 which are  unmarked and blank,  ready to be filled in with life’s appointments and reminders.  It’s like reading a book’s outline, wondering what story will be eventually be written in the little monthly squares. Additionally, if you  find a beautifully illustrated calendar or one unique to the  recipient’s interests, that’s just a bonus gift. I found one for my son with 12 NASA photos from the Hubble telescope. Chris isn’t particularly science minded  and keeps his calendar  on his phone. I loved the breath taking NASA photos  which attest to the grandeur, complexity and majesty of God. He who spoke Light into the world, spoke universes, our own planet and finally us. We appeared here on earth and now we create calendars  to mark our existence.

My daughter-in-law who teaches first graders asks for a calendar every year. When she opened the obvious calendar- shaped package, her kids teased, “Oh, WOW! It’s a Mom calendar! Surprise; surprise.”  She doesn’t care because she loves organizing and says it’s a favorite gift. In fact right after Christmas, she spent half the day calendaring whatever it is that first grade teachers and mothers of three teenagers need to do.

I’m not that organized and have learned  that dates, appointments and “ reminders”  are not always subject to my planning. Life happens; my  personal calendar can turn upside down quicker than I can find an eraser.  God loves to surprise us, shock us,  shake us  up and disrupt whatever we believe is more important than His perfect plan.  He keeps us in the dark about what He appoints for the ensuing months because He is merciful.  We do not need to know what 2024 will bring because knowing might be unbearable.  Had I known last January  that in June Dan would have heart failure, recover miraculously and then be gone in September,  how would I have endured all the weeks before and after? His mercy is a hidden blessing,  my deeply felt  gratitude  and hope for this year.

This morning I read something written for the New Year by a woman who has a busy ministry. Every new year she  consciously turns  the year’s  calendar over to God. She gives Him total control over every day, week and month and every appointment she has to schedule. That done, no matter the circumstances , she is assured that God’s plans for her life will prevail. God has never disappointed or failed to be in, with and through  her ministries. 

I don’t make new year resolutions which I never can keep anyway. But perhaps the Lord would look kindly at the 2024 calendar I’ve not yet bought and fill it in for me. I wonder what He will have  written at the end of this month,  later in June and  September and December. Whatever it may be, , let me say thank God for His mercy and say, “Yes.”