This post The Gate of the Year has moved to journojohnson.com

"And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: 'give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown' And he replied: 'go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way'. So I went forth, and finding the hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of the day in the lone East."
(Extract from 'God knows' by Minnie Louise Haskins)

This particular well-known poem was quoted by King George VI in his Christmas broadcast in 1939 after the verse was handed to him by the young princess Elizabeth, our current queen. It must have been inspiring for the people then in the first year of a world war they didn't know when would end or what might happen along the way. It can still be an inspiration for us now at the start of a new year when we are unclear of direction or the way ahead.

I found myself quoting this verse to another friend searching for guidance in her life, later realising that it was also wholly appropriate for me. I hope to make this year a new incentive for my writing, writing more frequently and with more intensity and purpose. However, there have already been disappointments and set backs along the way before the year has hardly begun. I have been a member of the Romantic Novelists Association now for two years. Not only is it a forum of help, advice and friendship but even more importantly a chance to have your 'work in progress' novel proof read by professionals. Now, due to my own lateness and disorganisation, I missed the deadline to reapply and consequently have lost my place for a year. How disheartening in a year when I had hoped to take my writing more seriously.  But events can overtake us both because of our own and because of others faults or in-attentions etc But like those people in 1939, I/we must not lose heart but instead put our hand into God's hand and go forwards and upward into the light of the breaking dawn.

A very Happy New Year to all my readers and fellow writers. I trust that God may richly bless and keep you in 2013.

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