Hi, all! Just a thought.

For most of us, our holiday season has been full of planning for the best Christmas, whether it’s the gifts or the food, or both, and getting ready for what lies ahead. Are the relatives coming? Will there be enough ham to go around? Is there enough time to get it all done?

Along with the activities of Christmas week also come the realities that the year is coming to an end. All we have experienced in 2024 will be behind us, and we can begin new things in 2025, if we choose to do so. There is so much to think about and so much to do. But, when we think about it, these days are not much different from our other days of the year.

This is a snapshot I took a while back while on one of the beautiful beaches of the Alabama Gulf Coast. I like to walk along the water’s edge and watch its ebb and flow right there on the sand. The shoreline changes with every wave, every move of the water. Yet, it never goes away.

The water comes, the water goes, but the sands remain. Yes, storms may take big sections at times, but repairs are made, and life goes on. Countless times in any given day, the water rolls in and out along the sands of the beach. And the beach is unchanged.

As we walk in and out of each new day, as we go about our regular activities or even the busy ones of the wonderful holiday season, are we making a difference? We come and we go. Relatives come and go. Dinners come and go. Days, weeks, months, and years come and go. But are we doing only that? Are we making a difference at all?

There’s a lot wrapped up in those questions. Allow me to simplify it a little. It may truly seem to you that you make no difference, but I assure you that the sands of your times together with those you love will never ever be the same because you have touched their lives! Every roll of every wave shifts the sands around, making new designs, cooling off the hot ground beneath our feet, and making life’s walk a little more pleasant. Yes, you make a difference! Never let anyone else tell you differently.

And let’s pray together that we make such a wonderful difference for the Lord, that the sands upon which we walk will never be the same again.

As we pass from this shoreline to the next, may the footprints we leave behind faithfully guide those who walk behind..

Just a thought. ’Til later.

Brad Campbell can be reached at mastah.pastah@yahoo.com.