After five winters we moved south to Jacksonville and became very much part of north Florida. My congregation in Orange Park was home to many navy families, and we became integrated into the military culture and participated in many change of command, and retirement ceremonies.

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

God is calling us on a journey whose destination is personal wholeness in his heavenly presence. St. Paul writes about pressing on "to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:12-14)

Yet having to choose poses dilemmas. Suppose we choose wrongly? What if we make the wrong choice? Yet for many of us anxiety is more about the possibility of losing freedom, of losing control, of being overtaken and threatened by adverse circumstances, by events that affect our wellbeing. As we look into the New Year we wonder what the year will bring forth. It is like looking down from a great height and growing dizzy at the possibility of falling into nothingness. The future is unknown.