This is the season of expectations. We await the Advent season all year. As Christians we await the celebration of the birth of baby Jesus. We await the music, the decorations, the plays and the Christmas programs. The expectations build for weeks.
We have expectations for not only the Christmas season but for the New Year's, as well.
This week I was having lunch with family and friends when someone mentioned the end of this month also brings the end of this decade. I was hit with the realization that another decade was gone! What had happened to all my expectations I had ten years ago?
I can remember all the build-up and hype for the new millennium, twenty years ago. No planes crashed; our computers worked perfectly; no apocalypse occurred. I don’t think many people were thinking of any expectations for the decade beginning in 2000 other than surviving, including me.
Then it was 2010, another new decade. Well, I think I blew through that decade. It was a time of new beginnings for me. I took on more responsibility at work, church and in the family. I didn’t have much time for expectations.
Now, it is almost 2020. I hope to have a clearer vision for this new decade. I expect to be more grateful for the little things in my life. I will celebrate the small moments with family, friends, co-workers and my church family. I will pray more, worship with expectation of meeting Jesus and acknowledge the power of a baby in a manger.
I encourage you to enter this new decade with joy and enthusiasm. And with expectations of what the baby in the manger can do for us in this new decade.
Janice Gillberg
Salina District Lay Servant Director
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