We stand at the gate of 2021 battered. Our sails torn to shreds in the storms of 2020.  

Corona virus showed us things, as we rise from that darkness of 2020. 

But are wiser today than then. We know it can get darker still. This we did at the turn of 2020. In Kenya the taxman has sharpened his sickle, for the debts are due.

With measured hope and stretched out hand help, let us share the mysterious-sounding words by Minnie Haskins (1875-1957) for God Knows:  

I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year,

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied, “Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the hand of God.

That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.”

May that Almighty Hand guide and uphold us all.

So I went forth,

And finding the hand of God,

Trod gladly into the night.

He led me towards the hills

And the breaking of day in the lone east.

So heart be still!

What need our human life to know

If God hath comprehension?

In all the dizzy strife of things,

Both high and low, God hideth his intention.

God knows. His will Is best.

The stretch of years

Which wind ahead, so dim

To our imperfect vision,

Are clear to God. Our fears

Are premature. In Him

All time hath full provision.

Then rest; until

God moves to lift the veil

From our impatient eyes,

When, as the sweeter features

Of life’s stern face we hail,

Fair beyond all surmise,

God’s thought around His creatures

Our minds shall fill.[1]

In 2020, God held us in his grip, he will yet hold us again in 2021. This is his promise:  “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil; for thou art with me… (Psalm 23:4)

Canon Francis Omondi

[1] They came from a poem of hers called “God Knows”, in a collection, The Desert, published in 1908.