Hello, I'm Gavin Bennett and this is the Bridgetown Daily for Wednesday, January 6th.

One of my traditions at the end of each year is to get away to spend some time reflecting

on the year that just happened and praying into the year that it's about to begin.

I've done it for years now and it always starts out with this sort of dread that washes

over me as I drive to wherever I'm going to spend my time, usually the grotto but this

year Mount Angel Abbey.

The dread with a hint of anxiety is mostly rooted in the fact that my expectations are enormous.

I want it to be life-changing and extraordinary but if I'm being honest and to no one's

surprise, there's yet to be any sort of enormous divine revelation or angels coming through

the ceiling moment.

Instead it's exactly what you'd expect.

I sit down and spend some time reading through my journals over the last year and the highlights

list that I keep about major things that happen.

And as I do, every year without fail, I am overwhelmed by the ordinary faithfulness of

God and not in a because I have to weigh genuinely.

I'm taken aback at how all the things that I went through, all the things that I did,

all the things that happened around me, they're really good, the devastating and everything

in between become a soil bed for my life.

Now, I am an optimist by nature, I love a good bright side in a silver lining but I also

don't sugarcoat things.

Some really hard things happened this year.

Global things like a pandemic that has taken millions of lives and ravaged our mental

...