March 28, 2024

The Pressbox

New Year’s message 2014

Happy New Year to all my family and friends. We’re always looking forward and moving forward in life. In a day or two, we get back to playing basketball, swimming, wrestling and bowling here in the Newton area.

2014 holds all the promise we each deserve in life.

But nothing is free. We have to work at it. My parents taught me that as I grew up and I’m still learning how to work for what I deserve and along the way help others. You don’t step on or over others to move forward.

I grew up on Walt Disney movies with the “Wonderful World of Disney” on television. One of those movies was “Pollyanna” staring Haley Mills. Pollyanna has the “glad game” and exclaims there are more than 800 glad passages in the Bible and with God telling us to be glad that many times, He wanted us to be glad, happy, believing not just in Him, but in each other.

I don’t know if there are more than 800 glad passages in the Bible. I do know to trust in God and in my faith as a Christian. We don’t always get what we want but He provides what we need in life.

“(Love) Rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; (Love) bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things; endures all things..... And now abides faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13: 6-7, 13

These are two of my glad passages from the word of God.

“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Phillippians 4:13.

So as we go into a new year with renewed hope and promise, look to the glad passages and know He is always with you and with me. I’m always here for all of those of you who need help. I pray for all in the world, even those who have not been good in my life because Jesus Christ instructed us to do so. I serve an awesome God!

Recently, I was watching “Coach Carter,” the truth-based story of a high school basketball coach who locked out his undefeated basketball team during the season because many of the players were failing in the classroom. One of the poignant scenes in the movie comes near the end when a young man, who had come and gone and come back to the team, stood up and answered Coach Carter’s earlier question “what is your deepest fear?”

The player recited a poem by Marianne Williamson.

Don’t be afraid to shine, lead and help others because by doing so it allows others to shine, lead and help move this world forward to a better place.

I leave you with that poem.

Our Deepest Fear

By Marianne Williamson

Our deepest fear is not that

we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness

That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves —

Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small

Does not serve the world.

There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking

So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine,

As children do.

We were born to make manifest

The glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us;

It’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,

We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we’re liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others.