New Year Wishes: My greatest wish for you

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A new day… a new year…

Opportunity to begin anew, to reflect on things accomplished or things that went wrong, to set new goals and to dream about new possibilities.

With two young children, I always seem to be late. It was while driving my son to school when he went back from the break this week that I had a few moments to really reflect on the turn of the new year.

The radio was playing, as it usually is, and it was set on a Christian radio station in our area, WMHK. We rarely listen to anything else in the car. A song by Mandisa came on, called He Is with You. As it played and I listened to the lyrics, I was struck by what a perfect song this is for this moment in time, as we transition from one year into another.

My Greatest Wish for You in 2013

Then I began thinking about all of the people in my life and that the message in this song sums up my greatest wish for you for this year!

In our country, we have just experienced yet another national tragedy, but this time it was some of our youngest children and their teachers who were victimized. As if it is not difficult enough to grieve loss… it seems even harder when it happens to innocent little children.

So as I listened to this song, I was reminded of the reality that while the dawn of a new year brings new hope and new opportunity to experience the joys and blessings of life, it also will bring some very difficult moments for many, perhaps most or, likely, even all of us.

We have not hesitated to be open about our faith here on our blog, beginning with our Feast of the Ages recipe series. It’s a big part of who we are, and we also seek to live as real and authentic in our home and everyday lives. So I am unapologetic when I say that, truly, my greatest wish for everyone in my life, whether I know you in person or whether our paths have only crossed here through our blog, is that you would know, or come to know, in whatever you face this year that He is with you!

Because He is.

Because He loves you.

And of course, I do not pretend to know you or all you may have been through in this life that may have turned you off to God or faith. I know some don’t want to talk about God and religion, and certainly, that is your right and I respect that 100%.

But if you leave this blog vowing to never return because we do share our faith here, I’d like you to know one last thing before you go.

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If there is ever…. ever … anything that we can pray for you about, please do not hesitate to contact us and let us know. If there is something you are going through right now that is too hard to even talk about, you could simply let us know that but that you could use prayer, and you can consider it done.

I have recently been inspired and challenged to pray more and differently than I have been, and I know and have experienced personally the power of prayer. We believe in serving others, as Jesus did and as the Bible teaches, and this is just one way we are offering to serve you in this new year. No questions asked.

What are YOUR New Year WISHES for 2013 and how can we serve you?

We would love to know what some of your wishes for 2013 are. Leave a comment if you’d like to share!

Many people set resolutions. Probably the most common one that always seems to come up at the beginning of a new year is weight loss goals, most likely because we have just come out of a great time of celebration during the Christmas holidays and then New Year’s. We’ve enjoyed lots of great food, but our waistlines aren’t enjoying it so much!

We recently started a newsletter, and in the New Year newsletter that went out this week, we included some tips that we thought might be helpful for anyone who set this resolution. If you have other topics you’d be interested in for our blog or newsletters, please let us know. Again, another way we’d love to serve you this year by providing information that is helpful for you. If you are not subscribed yet to our newsletter and would like to be, you can do that here.

And don’t forget about our Ask The Chef feature if you ever have a question about a recipe or a cooking technique that The Chef can answer for you. You can browse the questions previously asked by readers here. We have enjoyed hearing about what you are cooking.

We hope that you are getting 2013 off to a great start and that it is full of wonderful blessings!

One last quick thing…. if you have not seen our giveaway yet, we were blessed with an opportunity to host a giveaway for a $50 Williams Sonoma gift card and a coupon for a free Mrs. Smith’s Signature Deep Dish Pie. Go enter here if you’d like a chance to win! It ends January 11th.