So it’s now 2012, and a New Year lies ahead. It’s a year of excitement in prospect for us with a ‘big birthday’ for me in September and our Silver Wedding in November. But it’s a long time since, for a variety of reasons, I’ve approached a new year with such a sense of foreboding. There are a lot of possibilities out there, and a lot of things that can go wrong.

It was at this point that I remembered a few of the lines from the poem by Minnie Louise Haskins, oft quoted in this context and remembered because King George VI used it in his address to the nation in wartime. However, they still resonate and have something to say:

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

Now all I need to do is take the advice. Happy New Year.