When you start every New Year there is something within that automatically starts reflecting on the year before. We evaluate where we are, where we want to be and where we have been. But, when 2011 started my feet had already hit the ground running. I was already battle weary, tired and just so ready for a New Year that thought of reflection passed quickly.
Recently though, maybe a little later than we are supposed to, I had the time sit and reflect, look into the New Year and hope again. All of sudden at the end of the year I felt like I was overwhelmed with good things that were happening in our life. I ended 2010 a very tired girl. It seemed that the storms of life, the battle wounds and the whirlwind of life was getting the best of me. But in the midst of that storm God took a moment and blessed us. In fact the line "my cup runneth over" ran through my mind constantly. Though some circumstances seemed to not get worse, in other places we were overwhelmed with the goodness of God.
The ultimate view of last year would be that God is a mighty God. That His Hand covers all that we are, all that we see and all that is unseen. I see this huge portrait in my mind where God has placed each stroke with loving Hands and knows exactly the beauty that will eventually be seen in the canvas. His creative eye has already begun to put in the radiant colors called my life and is perfecting this picture so that maybe, just maybe, others might see who He is and that I might be just a small part of His perfect plan.
On my level of walking through this canvas of life I see each stroke of the painter's Hand in my life. I see the pain, the exhaustion, the stress and the walk of someone that everyday had to lay it all on the altar and trust that His plan was the right one. This I would call the crucible of fire that takes all the dross, sin, lost focus, and pain and burns it up so that all you see is the beauty of the gold that has risen to the top. From those ashes has become a beautiful testimony that I will never forget or regret. I will look back on those scars of human frailty as building blocks of trust and obedience to a Father in Heaven that loves me more than I can ever imagine. I have many years and miles left to go that I will go back into that crucible but last year , the entire year was lived inside the fire. So much was lost in the fire and what a good thing that was and so much was gained from His love for my family.
I wish I had time to recount all the things that , in the midst of the storm, God provided. He provided arms of encouragement and love when we needed it. He provided every financial need when it needed to be met, He provided hope when there seemed to be only despair, He provided strength through so many long days and nights of no sleep, He provided friends that prayed and prayed and still pray. At times it felt like He was in the room with me, guiding me, giving me wisdom and holding me so I could get to the next day. The closeness of God was alive in my heart and in my life.
So the deep waters of God overflowed into my life and there is nothing like it. At the end of the year the thing that God showed me, almost audibly, is that I have to start taking care of me again. I have to get back into the place of being all that I can be. He did that in two ways. The first was the Women's Retreat at our church. When I walked in all I could think of was dry bones but I was so surprised that the truth was Living Water was just wanting to rush out of me. WOW. How amazing. Where I was thinking I was downtrodden I was actually full of excitement, love and hunger for the things of God.
The other way He did that is with the Deserving Diva Makeover Contest that I won. From so many aspects that has changed my view. I had to take a hard look at where I am at in a different realm, this earthly body. Boy, that was a good hard look that I did not like but just like the pain and heartache it takes for to sometimes clean out our heart I am seeing the same thing Soul and Body. So this year, I am taking that precious gift and multiplying it to my health. So you might hear me crying in my cornflakes that I just can't do it…but then I will get right back up and start again. One thing I learned from the last several years in my life…I have a lot of tenacity, LOL.
That WOW Factor!
12 years ago
