**“Father God, thank You. Thank You for the days of this year that rested in the palm of Your gracious hand. Now, as we look back on the days recorded in Your eternal Book of Life, we kneel before You and offer a prayer of humble repentance.

Father God, forgive us. When You told us to cast our nets into the deep, we shook our heads in fear, relying on our small knowledge and limited understanding. We lived clutching empty boats, never once reaching the abundance beside You. When we should have offered You our best with thanksgiving, we brought what was weak and broken.

When You called us, like Abraham, to walk the path of faith without knowing where it led, we hesitated, wasting precious years. When You sought what was needed, we pretended not to hear, not to see, not to know.

Lord, the winds of time have bent us and wounded us. Now we long for Your healing touch— come to us.”**

**“Father God, may this year not become another lost page in the story of our lives. Guide us so that in the coming year we may live not as bystanders, but as stewards. Not in darkness, despair, or outward luxury, but with hope rising from the shadows, with patience, simplicity, and the joy that comes from cherishing the little we have.

Grant us the courage to live each day as if it were our last— with meaning, with joy, with purpose. Let us rise like the sun at dawn, beginning anew. Give us a new year as vast and soaring as the eagle spreading its wings toward the endless sky. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”**

Every year at this time, our hearts grow solemn. As we close the final chapter of 1997—a year that will never return—we pause to feel the brevity of life and to imagine the hopes of a new beginning.

Some look back with satisfaction, others with regret. Some endured hardship and long to leave this year behind. Yet the very fact that we are alive to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new is a sacred gift. Only human beings are given this grace: to end, to begin again, to let go of what burdens us, to push back the darkness, to stand once more at the starting line of life and hear the signal— Start.

Imagine if our lives had no endings—no close of day, month, or year. How empty our future would feel. To “end” is also to “count”—to measure what has been given and what remains.

When 1997 began, many of us watched the Big Apple descend in Times Square. We cheered, clapped, embraced, and stepped into the new year with joy. Yet before the year closed, we unexpectedly had to say goodbye to loved ones. Some were family; others were figures the whole world mourned— Princess Diana, the embodiment of grace; Mother Teresa, the mother of the poor; An Yi‑sook, remembered as a living martyr. Whether young or old, famous or unknown, they did not finish the year. But we remain—standing at the threshold of another ending.

Looking back, we send off the old year with tenderness and regret. We ask ourselves how well we used the time entrusted to us.

Ronald Graham, a renowned mathematician at AT&T Bell Labs, traveled the world constantly. Yet he never once complained of having “no time.” In the past forty years he studied Chinese at the graduate level, learned piano, mastered juggling, and wrote extensively while traveling thousands of miles. His motto was simple: “Do not fear beginnings.” Those who misuse time always say they have none; those who use every moment well never complain.

1997 has passed. Now we gather our hearts to set new plans and new direction. And we remember God’s promise: “From the beginning of the year to its end, the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it” (Deut. 11:12). We make our plans, but Joseph Campbell reminds us: “We must give up the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.”

We recall the failures of the past year and turn again to Scripture: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding… and He will make your paths straight” (Prov. 3:5–6). “A man’s ways are in full view of the Lord” (Prov. 5:21). “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps” (Prov. 16:9).

One day a church member called after a long silence. “Pastor, I think God has abandoned me,” he said. “Nothing went right this year. My wife became ill, my business failed, debts increased. If I could earn well, my family would be happy and I could give more to the church. But everything collapsed. God must have forsaken me.”

I told him gently, “God does not abandon His people. Scripture says the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul because Saul rejected God— but those who are in Christ are never abandoned. God seeks us, even when we are lost. Remember the shepherd who left the ninety‑nine to find the one.” Even as I spoke, I understood his pain.

To feel abandoned by God is a cold and dark experience. Yet even when every door seems closed, God opens a new one. Even when the path is blocked, He makes a way.

Year’s end is a holy moment. It wakes us from comfort, reminds us that life’s night will come, and calls us back from spiritual sleep.

Now the bells of the new year ring across the earth. Just hearing the word “new year” brightens the eyes and stirs the heart. Fresh time rises like new grass, quiet as a symphony. How grateful we are that we may all walk into this sacred time equally. No matter how dark the past year has been, we can step into the new year with a new spirit and a new heart. We can stand at the summit of time and cut away old fears and habits.

God has placed in our hands the crayons of grace and given us a clean white page called “the new year.” What picture will we draw? Will we fill it with the dark colors of despair, or with the greens of hope and the colors of the rainbow? The answer depends on where we set our gaze.

Psalm 100 invites us:

“Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His— His people, the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and bless His name. For the Lord is good, and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.”

Standing at the doorway between 1997 and 1998, I congratulate every listener. May you enter the new year with thanksgiving in your heart.

— WanHee Yoon, December 28, 1997