Susan Boyle is about to have the best selling album of 2009 with sales of over two million, according to The New York Times, passing Taylor Swift's “Fearless."

Think about that for a moment.

If you told someone a year ago that an unemployed and unknown Scottish single woman would pass out the hottest young star in America they would have suggested a psychiatrist's couch, and deservedly so.

If you told them that this same Scottish woman, an unknown at that point, would also have the greatest number of hits on You Tube in 2009 and be in the top five of all Google search terms, they would have recommended a mental institution, not a psychiatrist.

If you had told them that the same Scottish woman lived with her cat, had learning problems as a child, would lose the final of the competition she was entered in and still achieve all that you would have immediately called for the white coats and probably a priest, rabbi or minister.

Yet all that is true.

All of the above shows us the wonderful surprises that life can have in store. Sure, we have war in Iraq and Afghanistan, death and destruction, economic meltdown, global warming, angry marches, but there was something wonderful this year too.

A benign presence showed up at last, an up-from-obscurity story so incredible no Hollywood dream maker would dare make a movie of it.

She had a voice so powerful that it moved millions around the world to tears and her story spoke directly to the better angels in our natures.

Quite simply, Susan Boyle is the best story of 2009, without a doubt, because it gave us hope, shone a chink of light, revealed a calm after the storm and a gentle presence, a moment's succor from life's tempests.

Thank you Susan for giving us that. We all needed it.