My family had a wonderful time celebrating New Year’s Eve with friends. We simply relaxed and ate pizza and played games and giggled at our hosts’ dogs who did some wonderful tricks. Both of our friends work in a very stressful, fast-paced environment at hospital emergency rooms, one a physician and one a P.A. They both see the difficult side of life and often they witness death.

Our friends have a wonderful sense of humor, as you can imagine would be necessary to balance the difficult nature of ER physicians’ lives. Jayne had a cute little ginger bread house sitting in the middle of the dinning room table that—upon further examination—revealed quite the display of unusual characters on the outside of the “lawn” around the house. Instead of turn-of-the-century Christmas carolers, there was a dog with sun glasses, a police officer, and a few not so “ladylike” ladies, etc.

Why those characters? Jayne had worked in San Antonio before moving back to the Midwest. She had collected several little figurines that depict the culture of a Barrio in character form. Her husband, Cecil, recently surprised her with a collection of several more of the unique characters. The artwork and imagination that went into making these small figurines was impressive. We really enjoyed studying them and coming up with a story for some of them.

Before we left their home on Saturday, Cecil handed me my favorite of the collection as a gift. I put it in the window of our car, and on the drive home I happened to snap a picture capturing directional signs in the background. I thought it was a very appropriate reminder for New Year’s Day 2011. Some of us will need to turn to find a new direction.

You see, many of us will be facing new chapters, new opportunities, second chances, or facing the same rut of doing it our own way one more year. How has that been working for ya?

Then [Jesus] said to them all: “Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).

I believe we each have the opportunity to start 2011 finding direction at the cross. Walk in the Light this year friends. His name is Jesus.

When Jesus spoke again to the people, He said, “I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

—Submitted by Kathy, US

Speaker and Founder of A Gentle Answer Ministries