Beginning of the End

Today is the first day of the last month of 2008. Thank goodness. This has been a rough year for me... filled with ups and downs, but the downs were really tough this year.

But here's my theory... it seems that  most of the time, a bad year is followed by a really great year. One filled with adventures and friendships and the more obvious kinds of blessings that make you want to jump up and down like a little kid who hears the ice cream truck approaching. My 2008 was filled with many, many blessings, but a lot of my year's blessings were the kind that you had to look harder to see.

And that's really okay, because either way I choose to have joy. Joy if my blessings come wrapped in a huge bow of ease and excitement, and joy if my blessings come sandwiched between hardship and heartache. Either way, I choose joy.