Ending and Beginning

Well, this is the end – my final post to complete the 2011 Post-a-day challenge that I started on Jan. 1, 2011. I made it to the end without missing a single day. You might think that I had therefore posted 365 posts this year, but you would be wrong. I actually posted 398 posts in 2011, which means I posted twice on 33 days.

Last week I mentioned to my son how many posts I’d written and said I had 7 more to go before the challenge was complete. He asked if I could count the extra posts as those final 7 so I could be done then. But I said no, it wasn’t a “post 365 posts in a year” challenge. It was a post-a-day challenge.

I want to thank all you who read my blog this year and provided me with encouragement and friendship. I want to thank WordPress for presenting the challenge in the first place. I think I have grown a lot as a writer – especially in the area of poetry – as a result of writing a post for every day. It has really been fun, even when it seemed overwhelming. And I want to thank God for giving me the wisdom and strength, and quite often the very words, necessary to meet this challenge.

Now that I’m at the end of the challenge, what’s next? More blogging, to be sure! But in 2012 there may be days when I don’t post. When I don’t have anything at all to write, or I don’t feel good, or I just don’t have time, I may just skip a day. I am truly looking forward to not feeling compelled to write every single day, no matter what.

I will still keep some of my theme days, especially Music Monday, Thankful Thursday, and Recipe Friday. But I think I want to let the rest of the days of the week be more flexible and to write more poetry.

The most important thing that will not change is that I will continue to share the love of Christ and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

So for my last post of the year I want to share one of my favorite passages of scripture, John 1:1-14 (NIV), in which John testifies to the beginning of all things. May you be blessed by the truth and grace of our Savior.

John 1

The Word Became Flesh

 ¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning.

 ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood^[a] it.

 ⁶ There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. ⁸ He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. ⁹ The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.^[b]

 ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³ children born not of natural descent,^[c] nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

 ¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,^[d] who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Footnotes:

1. John 1:5 Or darkness, and the darkness has not overcome
2. John 1:9 Or This was the true light that gives light to every man who comes into the world
3. John 1:13 Greek of bloods
4. John 1:14 Or the Only Begotten