Here comes another year. Puts us a nickel into the 21st century. I have so many plans. So many dreams. So much to accomplish. I feel like I'm passing the world by in some ways. Cruising along in my own little orbit with hardly a thought for the rest of the world. And the world is passing too...passing away. It doesn't take a genius to see that. Especially on the heels of one of the biggest earthquakes in history -- one hundred thousand lives and unknown thousands more, slaughtered by mother nature gone mad. I can feel the shockwaves clear over here. They are tsunamis, crashing in on my harbors, rearranging familiar landscapes, and obliterating my comfort zone. Where am I? I ask as I survey the wreckage. What am I doing? The answers are painful. I'm on the brink of eternity and I'm not doing much. Hence the plans and dreams -- plans and dreams to make a difference -- to break out of my orbit and make some sort of impact on this planet. After all, "We spend our years as a tale that is told" (Ps 90:9) and it's up to us what sort of tale will be told. Will it be a great epic in which good ultimately triumphs? Where evil is vanquished and souls are snatched from the very gates of hell? A tale that inspires hope and courage in the hearts of men? Or will it be yet another heart-rending tragedy confined to hopeless shadow? A story that leaves nothing but a dark vapor -- a plaintive whisper of what might have been? The future alone will tell, and I stare at it with a shaky grip on my pen. But there is yet hope, for my story is still being written. And I'm seeing that it needs a serious twist in the plot.
  ¶ 10:54 PM