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Read past devotionals... A New Year Tradition... It is a new year and, as per my tradition, I began my year looking back at all the blessings and challenges I was faced with the year before, in my annual New Year’s phone call with Mary. Mary and John are dear friends from our very first duty station in Yuma, Arizona. We became very close with them as they helped to ease our transition into the Marine Corps. We began this tradition many years ago when we were all assigned to new duty stations; it keeps us in touch and allows us both the opportunity to reflect back on our year with someone who has fresh ears for the story.
As we began having families and got busy with our boys — she has three and a sweet little girl; I have two — we found we were losing touch. Emails are okay but they are just not the same as a conversation where you can truly hear the person’s heart —even from miles away. We began our yearly phone call on New Years Day has become a day I can look forward to reflecting on the previous year and pondering the changes both good and bad, but always with an eye to how God has blessed us through the entire time.
We have had some pretty BIG conversations in those all too brief calls about life, kids and especially how God has worked in our lives that year. Having a fresh set of ears to hear what God has done with my family always brings a fresh perspective, and things that felt like huge problems are often revealed as blessings. Having a friend who can give you perspective day to day is crucial and I have several of these as well, but once a year (though I wish it were more often) I get a different view. I cherish our calls and the chance to share how God is working in my life and rejoicing in how God is working in her family as well.
It is so hard, even in this day and age of instant communication, to truly stay in touch; not just ear to ear, but heart to heart. Susan Miller would call it Heart Talk, and it truly is. It is more substantial than an email, text, or even a Christmas card; we truly share our hearts in that time. I thank God for the telephone and brilliant friends like Mary who came up with the idea. May the new year bring us close to all those we love, and may friends separated by distance be brought together to catch up for a heart to heart even if only briefly on New Years Day!
“For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.” Colossians 2:5
by Becky Bolduc
Fredericksburg, VA Quantico Marine Base |
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