By Larry Stover
The Selma Times-Journal

I love this time of the year. The Stover Christmas celebration was awesome. Family from the area gathered together to celebrate the season.  It was especially fun to watch our grandchildren, Rebekah and Nathan, open their gifts.

It has also been a reflective time for me thinking once again about the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. The most stabilizing force in my life is my relationship with him. I don’t know how people make it in the world any more without that personal relationship with the Lord. I tell people all the time; “I love being a Christian!”

The year 2014 is winding down. With just a few days to go until 2015 arrives, let’s all take a journey back through this year.

For some of us it was a “great” year. Everything went well; our health was good; there were no major catastrophes; the kids did well in school; we had a job; we paid our bills on time; we were able to help others along the way; and, we attended church almost every week with our family.

For others, you are saying to me, “Pastor Stover, you have no idea what kind of year I’ve had! Everything did not go well! Murphy’s Law was the main operative with my family. It seemed that every time I took a step or two forward, I found myself retreating several. 2014 has left me with more bumps and bruises than I can count. If life could be charged with assault, I’d have a perfect case.” OK, I get the picture.

Life is full of transitions. For those of us who are seeing retirement on the horizon we are facing many changes. Our health is not what it used to be. We don’t heal as fast as we did in years go by. Retirement has no simple solutions or easy answers.

So many families are in the money crunch right now. There is never enough to last the month. I have had more phone calls and inquiries from people in need throughout Thanksgiving and Christmas this year than ever before.

Our lives get turned upside down by a lot of things. Auto accidents can change our life forever in an instant. Other families have had to nearly start over due to a death or divorce in the family. The list goes on. We all have a story to tell.

Whatever 2014 has been in your life, I challenge you to begin thinking about ways you can make 2015 a better year. We have no guarantees for the new year.  We will each have 365 days. That means we will have 8,760 hours. No matter how hard we try we will never find extra hours or days in a week; they don’t exist. Those of us who stay busy struggle with time management issues as much as anything. We will all find ways to spend time with family and doing chores around the house. Find some time to help others.

Hopefully, we will also allocate the time to take our families to church.

One thing I know for sure, with God’s help, we can all make 2015 simply beautiful!