I cannot believe it’s already the middle of December — with only 12 days to go till Christmas! So many, many, many things have happened… and are still happening, and will still happen, and it’s all just going by so quickly that I have been having a hard time catching up!

While many people are excitedly anticipating Christmas and the New Year, I’ve been quietly reflecting a bit on the New Year that has already started… well, for us Catholics anyway. (Yes, I’m referring to the Church’s new liturgical year, which officially began on the First Sunday of Advent — November 30, for this year.)

Today, December 13, marks the 14th day of the new Church year, and is actually the feast of Saint Lucy. Saint Lucy, whose name means “light”, was a virgin and martyr who died for her faith.

Here’s a brief account of her life, according to CatholicCulture.org:

St. Lucy (283-304) was born in Syracuse, Sicily, where she also died. She was of a noble Greek family, and was brought up as a Christian by her mother, who was miraculously cured at the shrine of St. Agatha in Catania. Lucy made a vow of virginity and distributed her wealth to the poor. This generosity stirred the wrath of the unworthy youth to whom she had been unwillingly betrothed and who denounced her to Paschasius, the governor of Sicily. When it was decided to violate her virginity in a place of shame, Lucy, with the help of the Holy Spirit, stood immovable. A fire was then built around her, but again God protected her. She was finally put to death by the sword. Her name appears in the second list in the Canon.

As we celebrate Saint Lucy’s courage and faith today, I find myself thinking about the calendar year that is coming to an end soon (sooner than I’d like, actually!).

While 2014 has been full of highs and lows, blessings and burdens, trials and triumphs, I continue to praise God for everything He has allowed me to experience.

One of the things I’m really, really, really grateful to God for is the blessing of being able to hope, dream and plan.

Recently, a few very close members of our family had to move to a new place, which made for a rather stressful situation for everyone involved. We had to help out in a lot of ways, and I even had to do a bit of research about what option would be better for them: renting or buying a home. (Luckily, I was able to find this useful article online, among others.)

The blessing behind the seemingly burdensome tasks that arose out of the situation is that it got me and my husband thinking and dreaming again about our own plans for our own home, among other things. You know, a place that we could really call our own.

Of course, once we started thinking, dreaming and hoping again, we couldn’t help including other aspects of our lives. We’ve actually just finished discussing our financial hopes, dreams and plans, too, especially for 2015. They’re still a work in progress though.

On a personal note, part of those hopes, dreams, plans, thoughts also include this blog, which is in need of a long overdue makeover. I think I’ve mentioned it before, many months ago, which only goes to show that I really need to get to work!

In the meantime, I hope you’ll stick around as I try to accomplish what needs to be done and set the ball rolling for other things, so that these new hopes, dreams and plans will finally become reality — all for God’s greater glory and, of course, all for the love of you, too, dear readers! 🙂

So, tell me… How have you been lately? What’s been keeping you busy? What new hopes, dreams and plans do you have right now? Let’s talk in the comments!