What about your friends…have you made new ones and taken time for old ones? How about the time you were going to spend with your kids and other loved ones? What did you do this past year to improve your spiritual health? Are your finances in shape?

As you enter into 2006, take a few minutes to review this last year, and think about what you are going to do the next. Write down your plans for making next year better than this one. Make sure you spend time thinking about your development physically, mentally, socially, financially, spiritually and in your family life.

The following was written by Wilferd Peterson in 1952. I found it going through some old papers my father had sent me many years ago. I wanted to share it with you at this time of the year and hope that it will give you peace in this season.

Slow me down, Lord!
Ease the pounding of my heart
     by the quieting of my mind.
Steady my hurried pace with a
     vision of the eternal reach of time.
Give me, amidst the confusion of my day,
     the calmness of the everlasting hills.
Break the tensions of my nerves and muscles
     with the soothing music
     of the singing streams
     that live in my memory.
Help me to know the magic
     restoring power of sleep.
Teach me the art of taking minute vacations…
     of slowing down to take a look at a flower,
     to chat with a friend,
     to pat a dog,
     to read a few lines from a good book.
Remind me each day of the fable of the hare
     and the tortoise that I may know that the
     race is not always to the swift;
     that there is more to life than increasing its speed.
Let me look upward into the branches
     of the towering oak and know
     that it grew great and strong
     because it grew slowly and well.
Slow me down, Lord, and inspire me
     to send my roots deep into the soil
     of life’s enduring values that I may grow
     toward the stars of my greater destiny.