Pelican Where Are You Going? 
I don’t know, the pelican replied. I just feel so lost and alone and I don’t know where to go or what to do. Once I used to have a good friend, but now they are no longer close, we are no longer together and now I don’t know why I even bother. The little boy looked at the pelican with inquisitive eyes and said, but why do you say you are all alone, when I am right here? Because that is what I feel like inside the pelican replied. The little boy looked sad, but when you say that it hurts me, I came here, rode my bike for more than 5 minutes and I even bought a fish for you to eat and I am sitting here talking to you and you are saying that you are alone. The pelican stopped a moment, a little taken back, then as if pondering said, then where are you going little boy. The little boy looked shocked; I am not going anywhere, I came to meet my friend. You’re friend? Who’s that, the pelican enquired. You, of course, said the little boy. Oh, really, you mean it? I never had a friend before. Yes, you did, the boy said, I have been visiting you every day for 5 years.
 
Sometimes we are just like the pelican, surrounded by people who love and care for us, but so focused on our own stuff, we don’t even see the needs of others and neither do we see that we are in fact not alone, but surrounded by people who love us more than we know. So why not take a moment today to recognise the people in your life and even say thank you to them for being there, even when you don’t see them and why don’t you be that little boy to someone else.
 
Image credit: Ros Willis. Used with Permission © prohibited.

A New Destination, 
Welcome, you have arrived, they might say, but you have to accept the welcome, you have to believe you are welcome or you will feel like a stranger in the very land for which you headed out to. You may have been so excited about giving up that old habit, about moving to a new place, about letting some stuff go, but then the closer you got, the more hard work you put in, the more scared you became because you didn’t see anything familiar, you couldn’t no longer see all the darkness that once gripped you, you no longer feared for your life to leave the house, you were able to show affection to your spouse, instead of automatically withdraw and then all of a sudden you looked around and you knew none of where you were and the unfamiliarity made you feel a bit sacred. What if I don’t like it here, what if all this freedom, and peace is not as good as I expected, what if the peace and joy and hope and light are not actually as great as being so tightly in-control of everything that my mind never rests? Stop. Just stop for a moment, sit back, look at where you came from, celebrate and now take a moment to wonder at the beauty of the exciting adventure that awaits you.

Leaving the Past for a Future Destination, 
Sometimes we have to say goodbye to things of the past, so we can take a hold of the future. We have a choice each and every day to live in the place we once lived and to hold onto the hurts of decades ago or to take flight, get a bigger view and move forward. The freedom that can be found by taking flight, getting a new perspective, forgiving, letting go and moving forward is amazing. We cannot enter a new season with bags and bags of what was in the past. It’s time to let go, time to give up some things, time to move on, because the destination has been booked. But the thing is the destination where you are going, will not be enjoyed nearly as fully, if you are unable to enjoy the journey, so take time to enjoy and celebrate where you came from, where you going to and hold onto the hope for the destination.

Imagine the Snow,
What a magnificent photo, showing the beauty of snow-covered mountains, something that many of us may have missed out on seeing this year due to the covid lockdown, but the thing is whether you got to enjoy the beauty it still went on regardless. Sometimes we need to stop and take a moment to enjoy the beauty around us, to celebrate the little things, to enjoy our family and the health we have. Because these things will go on being beautiful regardless of whether we see it or not. We have a choice to be someone who sees the beauty or someone who is begrudging and doesn’t see anything but all the things that went wrong. We have so much to be thankful this year and maybe even more than you ever stopped to realise. I get that it has been hard, but if we fucus on that, we will not move forward. So, make a choice today to leave a legacy of celebrating the beauty. To leave a legacy of hope.