How are things going for you in this new year? Had any hopes, dreams, buildings raised ~ and then dashed?

Bad news and burdens just keep piling up like a snowdrift against the door. It could get you down, yes? As one dear friend said, “I think I’m a bit depressed.”

The comfy chair beckons. We just want to collapse in it, sip cocoa, and wait to feel better. Wait for circumstances to change. Wait for the phone call.

But before you decide to just park, may I offer you a different vision?

~  A bend in the path ahead often appears to be a dead-end, but isn’t.

~    New hopes can grow like a phoenix from the dashed ones.

~   “Sometimes when you’re in a dark place you think you’ve been buried, but actually you’ve been planted.” *

These chirpy little sayings might appear to be silly platitudes. But they contain nuggets of truth. Sometimes we all need reminders of a truth that, at the moment, is foggy to us. Nudges to persevere. Words to revive our hope.

Often “dead-ends” are meant to make us pause, look around, evaluate. Not quit. But if we stop in our tracks when we see the closed gate ahead and sit down, we’ll never see the new path, new sights, joys, mercies, or miracles that wait just over the horizon.

So I invite you to pause and remember:

~It was not raining before Noah, working on the             plain, built an ark.

~Moses and the Israelites didn’t reach the Promised Land without plenty of walking.

~The walls of Jericho stood tall and strong until Joshua and his army, in faith and obedience, walked around them and blew their trumpets.

~”Be patient. It’s not a sprint. It’s a marathon. One step at a time. In the right direction. No pressure. Just keep moving. You’ll get there.” Johnnie Morris

Or in the words of that brilliant theologian, Gracie Allen: “Never put a period where God has put a comma.”

What small step can you take today to move beyond an obstacle?

Tweetables ~

Need a fresh vision? Sometimes a dead-end is really just a bend in the road.

You won’t see the mercies or miracles God has just over the horizon if you quit at the first roadblock.

* Quote seen on Facebook. Author unknown. If you know who said this, please let me know so I can give them proper attribution. Thanks.