It's not just a coincidence that I'm turning today to words of Faith Baldwin as I think about 2020 ending.
She's pictured in the illustration above that I begin every blog post with here at the Window. I begin every new year reading one of her books about her thoughts, this year with her Testament of Trust.
This dear friend of Gladys Taber writes of the New Year as a house, "swept and garnished, the floors and furniture polished, all the clutter tossed out, and everywhere, for welcome, flowers."
How I always loved to think of the New Year as that!
Can I do that this year? Can I toss out the worries and fears and frustrations of 2020 and go into 2021 with my mind swept clear?
I've decided that would take Herculean effort that I just do not have so I am going to take the New Year as it comes, just as I did its older sister.
I expect there will be some dust and clutter along the way but I also will be watching for little miracles every day.
I pray that each one of you visiting this post will have a safe and healthy New Year, and that each month will bring you a myriad of lovely "astonishments".
Pretend that someone with a much better voice than mine is singing Auld Lang Syne right now as I leave you with the wise words of Faith Baldwin:
A year is like a new house; each of us has lived in such a house before; at least the shape looks the same and we know before we enter that there will be twelve rooms. It's funny how we can settle in, while knowing that someday we must move.
Each year's house seems familiar from the time we set foot in it; the furnishings are, to begin with, the same. But they may change, little or much, during our tenancy. And always astonishments await us. There'll be views and vistas we didn't see from last year's house; and almost certainly a step we'd forgotten, down which we'll stumble, or a light switch which will fail, at least temporarily.
There are certain rooms which we'll redecorate, according to our own customs, and there are rooms which will assume new contours--those of pain or mourning; and other rooms will be warm with joy.
Walk with me through the house of one year, all twelve rooms.
Faith Baldwin in 1958's Testament of Trust
