Happy New Year

Well, Christmas has come and gone and New Year’s Eve is just a memory. How are you feeling about 2016? Are you excited? Are you cautious? Are you simply resigned to it happening?

The reality is that, regardless of how we feel about the coming year, there is a very good chance that it is going to happen, with or without your permission.

We have very little control over the coming of the New Year. What we do have control over is how we react to the events of the next 365 days regardless of whether they are good or bad.

Ultimately it will be your choice whether you allow the events that come into your life to make you a better person or a bitter person. Others may determine what happens in your life, but only you will determine what happens in your heart.

So, as we bid farewell to 2015 and hello to 2016, let’s do so looking forward to the New Year as an opportunity to do great things for God and to allow Him to do great things for us. It’s a brand new year with brand new possibilities, if we are only willing to see them and claim them.

Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.

Now that's News!

The headlines that vied for top place this week seemed to be the new Star Wars Movie, including the multimillion dollar pay cheque that Harrison Ford received, and the mistake made at the Miss Universe Pageant.  The fairness of both stories have been debated by the masses. 

In Ford’s case it seems that he may have been paid as much as 50 x more than some of his co-stars to revive his role as Hans Solo. 

On Sunday night Miss Colombia Ariadna Gutierrez wiped away tears of joy when she was named Miss Universe 2015, the second year in a row her country had won the title.  But the $30,000 blue diamond and topaz crown remained on her head for less than two minutes before host Steve Harvey realized he had made a mistake, the actual winner was Miss Philippines Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach.

First World problems. 

And while we can’t do anything about the inequities of Star War pay cheques or beauty pageant heartbreak the Cornerstone family has dug deep and will help cap 4 fresh water springs in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  And for the thousands of families in the DRC who will now have access to clean drinking water I would suspect that is much more important news. Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible

Chance and Choice

December 6th was the anniversary of the Halifax Explosion, but I’m sure most of you knew that.  And you probably knew that it was the largest man made explosion until the explosion of the atomic bomb.  The Halifax explosion has defined our city for the past 98years.  And I knew all those things but what I didn’t know, until just recently, was that my great grand-father was here when it happened.  My mother’s grandfather was a young sailor from Estonia who jumped ship in Halifax to start a new life, (today he’d be an illegal immigrant) but he wasn’t counting on being a part of history.  Family folklore says that he was behind Citadel Hill when the two ships collided and escaped the force of the blast. 

More than 1900 people died that day, but Pritu Rahnell did not, and because of that, I’m writing this today. 

It was by choice that Pritu jumped ship in Halifax and it was by chance he was protected from the blast of the explosion.  Each of our lives will be shaped by choice and by chance.  We really can’t do much about the chance but we are the author of our choices. So instead of complaining about chance, we need to do our best with our choices. Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible

Thank You Salvation Army

$500,000.00, that was the amount of a cheque dropped into a Salvation Army kettle last week in Rosemount, Minnesota.  $500,000.00! I’m pretty sure the local Salvation Army thought the cheque was simply a joke, that it was too good to be true.  But it was true, the cheque was honoured at the bank, all $500,000.00. 

The couple who put the cheque in the kettle later told the Salvation Army that when they were first married they struggled to get by, often eating groceries discarded by a local grocery store.  And now they felt they were in a position to pay it ahead.  "You get to a point in life where it's time to take care of others, the way you were taken care of," the donors said.

They also wanted the gift to honour one of their fathers who had served in the First World War and was always grateful for the hot coffee and donuts served to the soldiers by the Salvation Army.

Neat story, this year I will be again ringing a bell alongside of a Salvation Army Kettle because it’s a little bit I can do.  And like the Minnesota couple I believe in what the Salvation Army is doing to make our communities better places.  Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.