Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The Year in Review

I always enjoy the many articles and programs that focus on that very topic about best athletes, companies, events, wealth, etc. So as I sit here not feeling too well and looking out at the Northeast Ohio winter with rain and snow, my mind began to build my own Year in Review so I thought I would put it words and share with you.

This has been a very good year for the Williams home.  I think my greatest joy of the whole year was in seeing my beautiful grand daughter, Hope, my son's family adopted from Ethiopia, enjoy her first real Christmas. So full of life, loves to pose for the camera, loves to kiss and hug her Poppy (that would be me) and to see the way children, little adults, develop their own means and processes to exist in this thing called life.  Watching Hope is a joy and always leaves me with this huge smile on my face for she is such a blessing to our whole family in so many ways.

My heroes of the year would be the dozens of students I got to be part of their lives for a semester or two in some cases.  Watching them grow, develop, grasp, articulate, plan, organize, communicate blocks of work in a team-based environment is a real joy for me.  Yes there are those that stumble but the great, great majority excel in the team environment when they learn to work together. That, for me, is where education begins!

As with every semester, there are the twenty percenters.  Those that choose not to carry their load, to invest in the work with the rest of the team and the result is always so predictable and yet for me, still so very disappointing for I realize I am watching behaviors that will go with these underachievers for a lifetime. They will be the ones that feel everybody owes them some and that every problem is someone else's fault; never theirs!  The older I get the more strongly I detest wasted talent and opportunity!  But as a new year looms in a couple of weeks, I am so excited to get all the work that has been invested in the blocks of work begin to be built and delivered as the teams form, storm, norm and then to perform. It is all about performance.

Another tremendously rewarding part of my life is my church, The Canton Baptist Temple, where it is always such a joy to get to know and be part of some of the greatest people I have ever known.  The music that I get to sing is a part of my life that still astounds me at how much singing has come to define me and for the record, I love being defined by that for I see so many times and ways how music will touch a hurting heart and soothe a burning soul. Singing is a joy and a blessing God has granted me and I realize as I sing at more and more funerals and other events, it has nothing to do with ego but more with the blessing of ministry with a gift God has granted me. What a joy!

I would be remiss in not mentioning getting to be a small part of the home going of one of my military heroes, General Donn Starry.  He was a man of great intellect, and drive and touched the lives of millions in his lifetime.  Pray for his wife Karen as she finds her footing in a world without her husband and friend.  

I will close with the joy of my family! It has been a good year from a health perspective for all of us which is a praise.  Seeing the five grand kids grow and mature is a joy. Seeing their unique talents develop and evolve is simply amazing to me.  They all love each other and really being with each other.  I love how my three grand daughters loves to style my hair, brush my back, work on my fingernails; what a blessing!  We are close!!  Those three words are, well POWERFUL.  When I see so much hurt and disappointment and anguish around me, I am always reminded how great it is to sigh the words, We Are Close and know that we all are.

Thank you for being part of my life and my family. My family grows exponentially with each passing semester and I am looking forward to this nearly one hundred more family members I will link up with Jan 9. It's going to be good!

Our world is in pretty serious, dire strait and it is easy to get angry or worse, ignore the whole thing.  We live in a great country and I know this for I have seen many others.  Pray for our leaders as this new year dawns for we are direly needing leaders that will lead and not campaign of the next money-driven, lobby-driven, election; THAT SICKENS ME!

In 2012, be a special blessing to someone! It is a choice!

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