This is that rare year when New Year’s Day occurs on a Sunday.  Because of that, we are having only one morning service, which is at 10 o'clock.  Maggie Jarrell is preaching, and the familiar text is from Ecclesiastes 3 wherein the poet is musing about the opposites in life: a time to laugh, a time to cry.  We know those feelings as expressed in our bulletin cover, “Life is so beautiful: Life is so hard.”  To consider these opposites is appropriate for New Year’s Day when we are looking forward as well as backward, perhaps making resolutions for the new year.  Through that we may be pondering who we have been and who we’d hope to be.  In our 150^th year as a church it is incumbent upon us to do that: reflect on the past and plan for the future.  Although we can plan, we know those plans don’t always materialize, but what we do know is that, through it all, God is faithful to us and is with us.     (NOTE: Reflecting the importance of the Word, the video begins with the scripture, but once it starts you can scroll back to the beginning of the service if you want.  The entire service is videoed.)