It's about looking back on the year

            It's easy to look back on a year and say, "It was just another year." If the saying is that hindsight is 20-20, why is it that we miss all the good things that happened to us over the course of the year. Each and every year is filled with it's own blessings and let downs, but that is what makes each year unique, not the same.
            Blessings come in all shapes and sizes. Whether it's the present you got for your birthday, to the new friend that you made, sometimes it's the things that can change us the most that we cherish the least. Going on this new year, we must be prepared to appreciate everything that we receive no matter how insignificant it seems. If a mustard seed can move mountains, we can never underestimate the power of the small things. God works through ways that still amaze us today, but his most amazing thing he does is the things we forget to thank him for.
            Let downs are a part of life as well and, as much as we might hate to admit it, it is probably the thing that influences us the most. Through the past year we've all had our low moments, moments we thought we might never live down, but here we are today, at the dawn of a new year, and we are still soldiering on. It is not that we need to learn to appreciate the bad parts in life, but we need to learn to acknowledge that we are being put through those times for a reason. God never fails to bring us through the dark to the dawn, but sometimes we forget to thank him for the sunlight afterward.
            We are all here through 365 days of trials. Whether or not we are thankful for where we are or how we got here now, we must never forget to thank God for the year we went through. Each and every day is a gift from God that we don't deserve and, while we might not have appreciated all of them, we must be thankful for all 365 of them.