31st December, the last day of the year.  A day to pause, be it only fleeting to look back over the year that's gone and remind myself how blessed I have been.

It has been a year of extremes - the good bits so much better than I might have imagined, the not good bits so much harder and more painful than I would have anticipated.  Personally, locally, nationally and globally a year crammed with events and experiences - too many to name, too many to reflect upon.

A year ago I was frantically trying to get my conference paper finished to go to New Zealand - and what a great adventure that was.  A year ago (+/- a day or two) I was visiting the friend whose funeral I will conduct in just over a week, admiring her new house, hearing her plans for the garden.  A year ago I had spent part of the Christmas period visting in hospital two church folk, who were in the same ward as the one I have been visiting this year.  A year ago I had the Commonwealth Games to look forward to and the Referrendum to try to get my head around.  A year ago I was planing a holiday in Finland and hearing of young folk planning weddings. And so it goes on.

As the year draws to its close, I have very few regrets, and those I do are probably becuase I am too hard on myself.  It has been, for me, a good year.  Tinged with the sadness of losing friends and losing Holly Cat, shot through with moments of near uncontainable happiness, challenging, rewarding, demanding... and in all of it the awareness that life is precious and wonderful, the sense that, In God's good time, all will be well.

However your year has been, I wish you the blessing of health, hope and happiness for 2015.  Go well, and may God go with you.