The new year tip toed in last night. Although we're not revelers by nature, the quiet seems fitting: It's a time for reflection and prayer as the past is put to rest and the new dawns with the the flip of a digital clock. We're waiting and hoping each in our own way that our own yearnings be satisfied and our anxities relieved.

No promises except those of God to meet us in our needs and provide. Can we trust that even when God seems distant, inaccesible? The New Testament, particularly with people like Simeon and Anna, the woman with the hemorrhage and the man born blind, gives rich evidence that God comes to people usually unexpectedly and often after long years of prayer.