I can’t recall a time when people were more eager to say Happy New Year and big good riddance to the last one.
2020 was the pits, in many ways. You know it’s a particularly rough year when people have a hard time finding toilet paper.
When we wish each other Happy New Year, though, we are saying it in hope. We turn the page of the calendar – or rather, we start a whole new calendar. It’s a perfect time for a new beginning, a clean slate. To hope and declare that things will be better this year than last.
There are many hopeful things on the horizon. The powers that be have approved two COVID vaccines for use in the United States, potentially with more on the horizon. Vaccinations have begun with healthcare workers who are taking care of the sickest of the sick, along with workers and residents in long term senior care facilities. The rollout to more sectors of the population will follow at a prescribed pace.
Time for a Happy New Year, and New Bank Account
Here’s something I’ve shared before, but it’s been a while, and it bears repeating. It comes from Greg Laurie. He’s based in Riverside, California and offers good words of truth and encouragement to people around the globe.
Greg wrote this as an illustration for the start of a new year.
Let’s say that one day your phone rings. It’s the president of the bank that you use. He tells you that an anonymous donor who loves you very much decided to deposit 86,400 pennies into your bank account each and every morning. At first, maybe that didn’t seem like a lot. But then you figure out that that comes out to $864 a day. At seven days a week and 52 weeks a year, those pennies add up to almost $315,000 each year! But the bank president adds one thing: ‘The anonymous giver said you must spend all of the money on the day you receive it! No balance will be carried over to the next day. Each evening the bank must cancel whatever sum you failed to use! Remember, what you don’t spend is lost.’
That may sound like fantasy, but it’s not that far from the truth. Here’s the reality: Every morning, someone who loves you very much deposits into your “bank of time” 86,400 seconds. That represents 1,440 minutes, which equals 24 hours each and every day. He gives you that much to use every day you are alive. You can’t carry over on credit to the following day. There is no such thing as a 27-hour day. It’s called time, and you can’t escape it.
Time is ticking away right now. The Bible tells us to “redeem the time”—to make sacred and wise use of every opportunity.
Make every minute count
It’s an important reminder to make every minute of today count. We are not promised tomorrow. We do have the present, and it’s our gift to enjoy and use wisely.
May your 2021 be filled with hope, health and love. Hopefully you will be able to enjoy getaways with loved ones, and the beach is an ideal place to do that. Just give us a call and we’ll help you find that perfect coastal refuge in a luxury house on Isle of Palms.
All best,
Lowcountry Lisa
your Isle of Palms vacation blogger