Following my previous post and the one I posted earlier in the year, I am pleased to say that my Son and Daughter in law are expecting a baby again, due in July. Please pray for them and for the baby as it grows and develops that all will go well for them. Thank you, God bless and a Happy New Year to you all. Haydn
Archive for December, 2013
Well that is another year just about over and as you can see I haven’t been very regular with my blogging! I have just checked my blog statistics and am amazed at how over the year my blog has been read in 72 different countries around the world. It just shows how the internet can be used to reach people with helpful information but sadly also the other side of the coin is with information which is not so good.
In this blog I will briefly review 2013, a year which has had both it’s fair share of good times and the less pleasant but through it all God has again been what he can only ever always be and that is faithful.
We started the year with the good news that we were going to be grandparents, this was so exciting for us but sadly it was not to be as Bethany was stillborn in March (see earlier post). In April we did have a new member to the family, he arrived in the form of a Border Collie dog who we called Benji. As the year progressed we have celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary and we went as a family for a holiday to the Greek island of Corfu in August. Also in August we celebrated my Mum and Dad in-laws 50th wedding anniversary up in Darlington, an opportunity for the family to all be together.
Other highlights of the year for me have been the opportunity I have had to be involved in two weddings, the first in London, when I took a man from our Church in Rhyl who was 92 to his granddaughters wedding in Richmond Park, I then had the joy of doing a wedding blessing the following day for David and Helen. Then in May I was privileged to be able to take part in the wedding ceremony of a couple of special friends in Hungary, Gábor and Ildikó. I have had a couple of other opportunities this year to visit Hungary with my involvement with the Apostolic Church there.
This year has been a milestone year for our four younger children as well, Laura reached the grand old age of 21, Andrew reached 18, Nicola became sweet 16 and Gemma entered her teenage years, which means one other thing, I must also be getting older, and yes, sometimes I feel it but most of the time doing ok at 53. Earlier this year after years of problems I was finally diagnosed as having Crohn’s Disease which is an Inflammatory Bowel Disease, I was hospitalised for a few days in September and am now waiting to have surgery sometime during 2014.
What will 2014 hold for us? We don’t know, but there is one thing I am definitely sure of it is this, that I know the One who holds the future, He is the one who created all things and who sustains all things. He knows the end form the beginning, The Bible has this to say about him in Psalm 139
O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®) copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV® Text Edition: 2007.
This is the One who I trust, explicitly, for he has been faithful in the past and will continue in his faithfulness towards me in the future. He is the One who has been with me, alongside me during 2013 both in the good moments and in the bad and sad, he never for one second ever failed me and he never will. The question I want to ask is this, Do you know him? Not as some distant God who you think may exist, or you may think to call out to when things are going tough but as the God who is constantly with you, as the One whom you have encountered in a personal way through coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour and Lord.
As we leave 2013 and enter 2014 what better way could there be to enter the new year than to enter it knowing that the God who is talked of in Psalm 139 is the One who you will enter the year with yourself? The gods of this world are but idols, they have no control, they have no ability to help, they have no ability to to do absolutely anything for you, but this God he is the true and the living God, he is the One who not only created all things and sustains all things but also the One who entered this world in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ to reach out to you. And at the end of 2013, he reaches his hand out to you and says, “Let’s enter the new year together, let me come with you and you come with me, whatever you are going to face, let’s face it together.”
Are you willing to trust him, are you willing to let him come into your life? If you want more information then please don’t hesitate to contact me through this blog or find a good evangelical Christian Church and seek out its leaders for spiritual help.
A happy new year to all my readers and thanks for dropping by and reading my blog.
Celebrating our Wedding Anniversary in Corfu
Weddings in (top) London and (bottom) Hungary
The family together for Nan and Grandad Chase’s 50th Wedding Anniversary August
(Back Row) Katie, Haydn, (Blog Author) Elaine, Miriam, David, Shaun
(Middle Row) Ruth, Steven, Nan, Grandad, Robert, Abigail
(Front Row) Gemma, Laura, Nicola, Andrew
Haydngreenow's Blog 