Thank you Lord!” was all I uttered looking up in the sky watching fireworks as we welcome the year 2022 with joyful noise.
I am grateful because I have survived the many trials of 2021. My faith was tested the hardest way but I defeated all my fears and worries as it just made me the toughest person I could be. I accepted and embraced the things and events of life I considered hard to accept and became submissive to the will and plan of God.
Like many Filipinos, I celebrate Christmas and New Year with love, welcoming the new year with hope for the better things to happen in the coming days.
Many people considered year 2021 as one of the worst years because of this longest running pandemic.
In the middle of month before the year ended, typhoon Odette lashed the Philippine archipelago. It was a fateful day for many Filipinos especially in the hard hit provinces of Visayas and Mindanao. Many lost loved ones and homes were crushed away. It breaks our hearts seeing many families, instead of celebrating Christmas with sumptous foods on their tables, are left roofless, begging for food and drinking water on highways and are in dire need of shelters, clothings, medicines and many other basic commodities to survive their cold and dark days. We can never be happy seeing many families in great misery.
This gigantic weather disturbance reminded us of typhoon Yolanda. It crushed everything on its paths upon landfall from one province to another. The devastation is massive to the highest level.
In fact, not only typhoon Odette or Yolanda but we have been through a lot of huge storms in life trying to shake our faith. But a faith achored to the love and mercy of God cannot be weathered by any storm.
We are now in a new chapter, new hope and new beginning of our lives. We just pray for all our loved ones who did not make it to 2022.
As we celebrate the 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines. The Chaplaincy to Filipino Migrants organises an on-line talk every Tuesday at 9.00pm. You can join us at:
https://www.Facebook.com/CFM-Gifted-to-give-101039001847033
We should never take life for granted and think only for our own good. We should use our time to serve and love others for the glory of God.
The year 2021 was a chapter of a life well-lived and a battle well-fought. And 2022 is still an empty book as everything is yet to happen. Thank you for the memories of 2021.
We just pray that this new year will bring love, health, happiness, prosperity and peace to the whole world. We also pray for God’s blessings, guidance, protection and provision in the days to come.
Lynn Salinas-Batoliño
The Philippines
