MILLENNIUM ESSAY CONTEST WINNERS; LOOKING FORWARD AWARD OF MERIT: HANDLING CHANGES

As I look ahead to the new millennium, I see many changes, but change is what life is all about. How we handle changes shapes us into the person we become.

Each stage of life has its rewards and its obstacles, and as long as we live, we are on duty to handle life's situations. As we mature, our choices get more complicated. We learn that "rights" are not always right and that life isn't always fair. We strive for balance and become either an optimist or a pessimist.

Life doesn't come with all the directions, and results are sometimes less than perfect. Some things we have no control over, such as the weather, sickness and disease, war and political strife, but we learn to live with it and go on from there.

At some point, we become aware of our Creator and choose to follow him or do it the hard way. Life is like cash, you can spend it any way you want to, but you can only spend it once.

As our years shift, so will our point of view. Now that I'm old, I can't imagine living without God. God still has a purpose for us, else he wouldn't have let us live this long. Every day, we slip a little nearer to our destination, and I find that fear lingers longer and knocks louder with each passing year. Life becomes a matter of holding on and keeping up.

Looking back is like a rear-view mirror: We can see where we've been but we have to keep our eye on the road ahead. Life is like any other journey. We take a lot of excess baggage, and along the way we cope with detours, bumpy roads, curves, exits and wrong turns. Sometimes, we get in a ditch or gutter. We don't follow directions and get lost.

Using the Bible as my road map, I can now look ahead at the bends in the road and other hazardous conditions. I may be running out of gas, but I know where I'm going and, with God's help, will reach my destination.

I am thankful for the changes I have lived through and thankful for the opportunity to see the sun rise on a new millennium. While life has its ups and downs, its rewards and failures, I am thankful that I have lived this long and can proudly say, "I wouldn't have missed it for the world."