2013 In review...

So, the biggest New Year's resolution I had for 2013 was to eat/live/be healthier. And I'm happy to say although I'm not perfect and could have stuck to it better, I kept it! I lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off. We made better choices in 2013 like cutting back on junk food, rarely eating Fast food, and making better food choices (lean ground beef or turkey instead of 'the cheap stuff', buying whole wheat, and skim milk or reduced fat cheese too). and trying to get more active as a family.

More importantly, it wasn't a resolution but it should have been-having a regular quiet time. Jacob and I made God our focus rather than merely a part of our routine. That has been a struggle but when you see that you start to veer off course from that, it's important to steer back the other way to correct it. Since Sept, we have really tried to take that time, both separately and together to pray and read God's word. It has (not sure why I was so suprised) taken us by surprised by the drastic and dramatic awesome effects it had over our lives.



We started and have been faithful to tithing and trying to get our debt back paid off and to where we can start saving. We aren't there yet, but that is coming! We are also -in 38 days- going to finally achieve a dream God placed on our hearts. We finally had the courage to trust God and act on it, and He's taught us so much and provided. He's shown us that when He tells you to do something, He will give you all you need to do it! So we are going to Haiti. I faced my fears and got vaccines that I was terrified to get. In 2014 I will face another when I step on an airplane for the first time. With God in control, it's funny how He always provides for the "outlandish" dreams He places in our hearts. He won't call you without equipping you. It's just sometimes the equipping happens on the way! And all those things I prayed for in the past, I see now the things I didn't get, I didn't get because they wouldn't have been in line with God's will for my life. It's easy to say you don't receive because that wasn't what God wanted, but it's more than that.

My husband have had many discussions about this. See, what we've learned is it is a cycle. By prayer and reading His word, we learn to live more in line with what God wants. We desire to become (and therefore do become) more obedient to the Lord. We genuinely seek His will and seek to act it out in our lives.  THEREFORE, we are given EVERYTHING we ask for, because EVERYTHING WE ASK FOR, is what He tells us is good for us. Does that make sense? It's both simple and profound at the same time, really. It's not saying that if I love God and ask for a new car He'll give me that new car. It's seeking God to see what really matters and genuinely wanting THOSE things, and ironically when we do that, we find true contentment because He gives us those things and we need nothing else! How cool is that!?

Several years ago, our pastor made a statement that stuck with both my parents (who happened to be with us visiting that Sunday) and me. Contentment can make a rich man poor, and a poor man rich. We prioritized all the wrong things for so long. Now, it's not that we have it all figured out, or even that we have all we need by "worldly" standards, but that if Christ and our salvation is all we need, and we really believe that carries as much weight as it does, then don't we have everything?  What else matters?

God has shown me and my husband some real nuggets of truth over the last few months, and each one of them was deeply grounded in scripture. I am working on that one, hiding God's word in our hearts. For me, I struggle with remembering the reference. But thanks to modern technology, I can always do a quick search and pull it up when He brings the verse to my mind!

In the past year we've learned He cares deeply for us. 1 Peter 5;7 says Cast your burdens (worries, anxiety, cares) upon him because he cares for you! We have seen God provide even the little things that we had no answer for-our car battery died and God provided a new one, free of charge, even though it wasn't a logical way. It wasn't us who had purchased the battery, but the previous owner; they didn't have to honor that warranty, but they did. Then, they were out of the one we needed, so they upgraded us to a better battery for free! No HUGE miraculous parting of the red sea was needed. Just an awareness that we had problems and He cared! I learned that as hard headed as I am (and unfortunately I don't always always get that lesson God tries to teach me the first time around) I still need to be reminded over and over apparently.

We've learned He answers prayers. It seems silly, because Jacob and I both accepted Christ 20 years ago, you think we'd know these things. Well, we do. But to say the least we've taken them for granted, because we are guilty of only praying when things got really bad, or when things were really good. If God cares for us, it's not just about asking for help when you are at your lowest low or the obligatory praise due when you get a prayer answered. It's about a true and personal and deep relationship with Him. Just like you would call your friend for every little thing, He longs for that same closeness with us. Anything less than that is less than our best, putting Him on a shelf, using Him as "fire insurance", and it breaks His heart.Really and truly. He already knows our needs but He wants to be asks. So we have seen this year, things we might not have ever noticed before September, but I have no doubt they were already there before. He's provided us with opportunity after opportunity to seek Him and His guidance. Not just huge things, but the little things. See God's in those too! I recall losing my keys, and Jacob losing HIS keys...both about 2 weeks apart. I don't believe in accidents. I believe that was an opportunity to pray. Right then and there, to stop and pray. I stopped right there in front of the baskets at Aldi, 3 kids in tow, and prayed with them for God to show me where they were because I couldn't find them without His help. With Jacob's, the same thing.  We rooted around in the trash at 5 am with barefeet the day after Christmas, unable to find them and terrified they'd gotten scooped in the trash. Finally I said, I'm going to sit inside on the couch and just pray, because God will have to tell you where they are. We will never find them on our own. And We did!  We saw God's hedge of protection around Josh to get Him out of the way when His behemoth dresser toppled over just barely missing him. We saw it again a few weeks later, when Jonah wandered off at a wedding. God protected him from getting hit by a car or getting lost in the woods. Scenes of a search party frantically raced in my own mind and terrified me, but we found him quickly, in only a few minutes. He had gotten distracted from wandering off by a cat in the row of cars, instead of trailing off into the woods to explore. I believe that was a total God thing.  Those are major things, to us, but most people would write them off as coincidence or a lucky break and move on. I see God in them.

We learned how many people love us and care for us. We learned how much more awesome a marriage is with God truly at the top, not just in the middle somewhere. We've learned how big of a difference reading God's word and prayer is when done when your spouse. Your relationship with God IS NOT a private thing. Let me be clear. It's NOT between you and God. It is a personal relationship, but if you hide it from others, you don't care enough about Him OR them. That's putting it bluntly because that's how we lived for a long time. For some reason we felt justified to keep Him all to ourselves. How selfish!!! As I told the 5th and 6th grade girls before Christmas, if you got the most amazing gift-that cell phone you wanted or those new boots, you wouldn't keep them in the box, and put them in closet and never use them. You'd be calling everyone or wearing them whenever you could. Why do we put God back in the box and only call him when we have a 9-1-1 emergency? Why aren't we excited? There's a breakdown somewhere and it's not with him. It's on our end. I promise.

We've learned that our weaknesses are not without purpose in our life. Those are, if we let them, where God gets to shine! In our weakness HE gets to be strong. In those impossible situations, if we will only trust Him, He gets to come in and save the day. But He wants the credit, and rightly so. So many times, He bails us out (or keeps us afloat) and we take that credit for ourselves, or at best, just think it happened on it's own without it. You got lucky, we say. He loves to put those impossible dreams and situations in our lives to get to show Himself off to others so they, too, are without excuse.  If they refuse Him, then it's on them. It won't be for lack of trying on His part, or giving you opportunities to let Him in. Some choose to be blind unfortunately. I have no doubt our Haiti trip is one of those opportunities! $4000 when we are flat broke (broker than that actually..you have no idea, lol) seemed particularly impossible! There was no way. So, even though Jacob felt let, I wanted more and more confirmation. I wanted something clear and direct. I got it, and STILL questioned it. How's that for being human? *Remember up there where I said I was hard headed? Sometimes I have to be smacked upside the head with God's truth. That same day I was questioning God's clear and direct instructions. "Go to Haiti. I will provide. Stop worrying and trust me." I wondered I had somehow imagined it...(LOL) because there was no flashy showy burning bush demonstration. Jacob read, as I told him about what God had told me in the middle of the night, from our Gideon Bible study that sometimes God speaks to us more often than not, in the every day things. I will muck it up if I try and tell you the whole story, but it was about as clear as day that He understand I needed reminding AGAIN to trust Him. To trust that I could trust Him, if that makes sense! Craziness. And He has provided. After the fact. But it took that trust in the beginning. To stand firm, even with only a mustard seed's worth of faith. Thankfully, God will meet you right where you are.

That's the last thing we learned. You don't have to have it all figured out right now. Trust Him. When you don't know what to do, seek Him. When He gives you directions follow them. When He gives you instructions, act on them. When you can't see the way, don't doubt Him. When you feel attacked at every corner, like we have been, don't give in! Stand firm, because you can be sure if you are facing sttacks in every aspect of your life, they aren't from God. You've clearly done something that the enemy is afraid of because he's using his limited resources on you to try and stop you! Don't let him!!!