There is a poem known as ‘The Gate of the Year’, which is so appropriate as we enter into 2020. It was made famous when King George VI quoted it in his Christmas radio broadcast at the start of the Second World War. His wife, Queen Elizabeth had been sent the words in a Christmas card, and she persuaded him to include it in his talk.
The poem was written by Minnie Louise Haskins, a lecturer at the London School of Economics from the end of the Great War until the end of the Second. Minnie originally called it ‘God Knows’, but the theme of ‘The Man at the Gate of the Year’ seemed to be so appropriate at the start of a war when nobody knew what was going to happen;
And 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 in the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.
Let us put our trust in God that he is with us.