To day Saturday is a quiet day for us at home. However it is busy time for the young and middle age who are preparing for Chinese New Year, or Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival.
This year Lunar New Year begins on Monday - first day of the first moon (month). According to the Gregorian calendar, this is anytime between 21st January and 19th February.
The years from 1990 - 1997 the period we were in the Philippines and London, we did not celebrate Lunar New Year. No public holiday in these countries and we had to be in office. But privately we arranged for dinner in the form of 'steam boat' and invited some of our friends to our home on New Year's Eve.
Since we returned to Singapore we always have reunion dinner with our family. We had one last Thursday with our daughter and family. Tomorrow on the eve of New Year they will be with our son-in-law's family for the reunion dinner. We, of course will celebrate the reunion dinner at our son's home with his family.
Tradition has it that it is a time of settling all debts. Tradition has it that all debts must be paid before New Year's Day. The superstitious believe that if debts are not cleared before the New Year the debtor will be debt ridden for the rest of the year.
Today's world, the majority still have to pay their mortgage for the HDB flat, perhaps for the next 20 or thirty years! And the bank loan you took for the son's education you still need to pay.
Its also the time for reconciliation, to start life afresh. One of our grandchildren will come for us to-morrow to take us to their home for the reunion dinner. We are indeed very blessed. We have no debts to pay, nothing to worry just trust in the Lord who provides for all our needs. The pension from The Salvation Army is sufficient for our needs. Take heed of our Lord's promise to His children who trust Him - Matthew 6:25-34
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
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