The eve of a new year is usually a time of reflection, of looking back and looking forward. Well, for me, the new year is usually a time of calm and rest before getting back to work. Celebrations tend to be quiet after the hoopla of Christmas, which I tend to do in a really big way. I do, however, make a point of commemorating it in some gastronomic/alcholic way, even if I am alone, but introspection has always been a waste of time. Resolutions? Haven't made one for years - what's the point? I always break them in the first week of the new year. Don't need the guilt trip. As for reflections on the year past - again, what's the point? Another year gone, here comes the next! There's always more where that came from!

Well, for the first time, I have to realise that there may not be that many more. And I have reflected on the year past. It had started with so much promise - I was doing well at work, and had every expectation of ending the year well. Was planning to travel extensively, kick up my heels. Instead of which, I am fighting cancer, am on extended medical leave and have just had it confirmed that cancer has made me unmarketable as an employee.

Guess what? I have had a great year! Ok, ok, I know I have cancer - am not senile yet, my mother's opinions to the contrary. But when I look at the blessings I have had over the past 12 months, I would even go so far as to say that for various reasons, 2006 will go down as one of my better years.

The cancer journey has been a blessing. For one, God has surrounded me with angels. No, not the types with wings, although that might come. I am talking about the friends and family, and their friends, doctors and nurses, and other perfect strangers, who have so unstintingly reached out to me to encourage, pray and befriend me. From a human perspective, I am very, very much blessed. The caring has, I believe, enabled me to remain positive.

Strange, but I would never have labelled myself as positive, an adjective many seem to apply to me these days. I might have said I was a coper, a survivor, but positive? I am reminded of a friend who used talk to people calling her firm to complain. They would ask her peremptorily: 'Are you a manager?' Her response would be a dry:'Well, I manage!' That's me. I manage, mostly by the skin of my teeth.

The past few years for me have been rather lonely. Being unemployed meant that I lost an element of daily human contact. Working, subsequently, in a country where I did not speak the language and where I knew no-one also meant a certain degree of isolation. Now, I am back in a country I swore I would never return to, with friends and family and - dare I say it? - am perfectly content. So, God used the cancer to relieve the isolation. My dance card is full. Go figure.

And I believe that while I chafed at the bit in terms of not being in the thick of things work-wise, it was God at work, trying to keep worry at bay for me. Then there was the financial provisioning, so that I could have the best treatment possible, without any trade-offs. I even had a little left over for my personal favourite therapy - ie, retail, made even more fun because I can now, after 20 years, fit into small sizes.

Finally, the real reason why this year has been so fantastic - I am seeing God at work and it is marvellous! Look what I have been through, and yet am able still to run 9km, walk the length and breadth of Orchard Road each day, enjoy three full meals, do tai-chi,play hide-and-seek with my niece and nephew, and most of all, laugh out loud at least once each day. And imagine, I do all this on a macrobiotic diet! I can find no other reason for this than God's grace. So yes, it has been, as it has always been, sufficient unto me and I give thanks for this every single day.

Roll on 2007. God is doing something new in my life. I have given up trying to second guess what this might be. I am just going to enjoy watching it all unfold.

There are people in the world sitting in their homes, watching TV in their pyjamas, never having got out of them in the first place, as if this were just another ordinary, even dreary, Sunday, thinking that this is merely yet another year-end, yet another new year. Well, folks, a year-end, means one less year on earth, and one less year before you see God face to face. Sorry to be blunt, but there it is. Take the opportunity to reach out to people who have meant something to you, and to whom you would like to mean something. In the end, from where I sit, it is the relationships that matter the most, not that blasted TV set.

I thank everyone reading this blog for all your support over the past months - it has meant alot to me. Happy New Year, one and all - may God's abundant blessings be with you throughout 2007.