We all are looking forward to another year ahead, but, in remembering past generations, we realize that there is no way for us to imagine what could be in store for us.
I'm in the middle of writing about the Depression...not the one of 2008 that everybody seems to think we are out of now, but the Real Depression, the Great Depression of the 1930's. The McKennas and their extended Family are in the middle of it.
And, yet, as bad as the Depression was, they had no idea what was ahead. There were rumors of it. They knew Hitler was making his move across Europe, but at the time where the books are now, they could not have imagined where their lives were headed. World War II was right on their doorstep, but they didn't know it. It would change the fabric of the McKenna clan forever.
It would rearrange their world for years as the men went away, some never to return. It would change the world beyond Dooley, Georgia and bring it closer to their little pocket of land nestled among the mountains....closer than they ever had thought it would come. And it would bring out the best in some of them, showing them as they truly are and changing opinions about them.
Keever will come into prominance during this time; Jerusha will impact the Family in a life-changing way; Jordan will become what he never aspired to be....the patriarch of the Family. All so different from what they would have imagined, looking at the New Year, or the new decade ahead.
So, what will this New Year bring? We don't know. Just as WWII will bring dread to the McKennas, yet it will bring heroics and new family members and, in an odd way, joy.
God has a way of making joy in the strangest ways. And in the strangest times.
Happy New Year. Whatever it may bring, may you find your joy in the Lord.