Dear God,

I know you never put more on us then we can bear, but this year has been filled with challenges. If I had to pick a word for that I have learned this year, it would be tenacity. I have learned to have the determination to rise about difficult circumstances. It does not mean it has been easy, but I am making myself rise. I am finding the strength within myself to keep on going.

There have been days when I felt so deeply and did see my own strength, but I would remember to release the fears that were obscuring my vision. You found your way of reminding me to be like the Tree of Heaven, the tree Betty Smith wrote about in her novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. She wrote, “Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first time or last time. Then your time on Earth will be filled with joy.”