Some thoughts toward the close of the year.

I’m allowed.  Once a year I am allowed to collect my thoughts about the previous months of work and interaction and communicate them with you.  This year has been an exceptionally fulfilling – and pointedly difficult – time.

I am thrilled, overjoyed and encouraged by the outpouring of community involvement of the readers of Today’s Word.  For years I hoped, and prayed, that Today’s Word would become more than an intellectual enterprise or another interesting devotional without feet on the ground.  YOU wonderful people made this happen.  I have not a single regret that we have moved toward a smaller circle.  Watching this community enter into the lives of each other has been truly exciting.  I can only hope it will continue.

On that score, I am reticent to encourage expansion.  There may be a place for significant outreach beyond our community through other venues this next year, but the addition of members to what we are all about will not happen through social, internet marketing.  We will grow because we touch others in a different way.  I encourage you to use this platform to reach into the lives of those who matter to you, but I caution you to make the effort one of walking before talking.  I know you understand.

Of course, given the needs of the community – and my own – I ask you to take a moment to see if your financial involvement reflects the value you draw from this group.  That’s all.  You decide.

On the darker side, I am constantly aware of my own tendency to push toward “thinking” before living.  I am comfortable in that ethereal arena of debate and esoteric nuances.  When I begin to move that way, I immediately notice how difficult it is for me to pray.  Prayer is my personal measure of spiritual growth – not cognitive development.  And on this measure, the past year has been very difficult indeed.  Far too often I come to prayer with great struggle, confusion and anxiety.  I have wrestled with some old demons this year and that battle has taken its toll.  I apologize if my writing wandered off into the intricacies of the text.  While these are important, they are no substitute for the Spirit.  I am keenly aware of that, especially as I put myself on one deadline after another for several books.  Far too often this year the writing has been a too-comfortable retreat from the struggle I find when I am on my knees.

Finally, as you know, I have been working on The Perfect Enemy, a book that explores in depth the meaning of the wife as ‘ezer kenegdo.  I hoped to have it done by now, but it is a book which drips with conviction for me.  Every page calls my own marriage into question, raising the standard and illuminating my own failures.  It isn’t done because it is very painful to write.  I believe with passion all that is written.  It just happens to be a love letter that tears up my own heart.  I might as well be writing it for myself – but you know by now that I write everything for myself.

So, a new year is coming soon.  Perhaps this small reflection will steer you toward something deeper.  I know I miss seeing you.  I hope that next year will offer opportunities to be face-to-face.  I need to climb a few more volcanoes, cross a few more deserts and sail a few more seas – together.

Thank you.