Today we turn a page in our lives, we are ringing in the New Year, 2014! I usually embrace the coming year. I like a clean slate. A fresh start. A few new goals or areas to focus on in my life. Yes, I do resolutions...I am a goal oriented person and love to check them off as I accomplish them.
I remember Dec 31, 2012...I was not embracing what the year would hold. I had a gut feeling that I would lose my husband in the coming year...and I was right. I did not embrace it and what it had to offer.
2013 has been the hardest year of my 41 years on this planet. I am ready to put it in the past and press on in the year ahead. Sunday, January 5th, makes 6 months since Dave passed away. I have made it half of a year as a widow. I have faced several of those "Grief Milestones" in a short time...the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas, His birthday, the New Year, and the 6 month point...all within a little over a month. It has had it's HARD days, but thankfully most of them were good days.
This is my 4th year that I have prayed about a word and a verse for my year. I have had some come to me late in January, some early in January, but this one hit in December. The Lord made it clear to me and I embrace it with enthusiasm and joy!
My word for 2014 is "NEW" and my verse is Isaiah 43:19 "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."
I see things that the Lord is doing already that are "NEW" for me. I am sure many I will share in the year ahead. I am excited about them, fearful about some of them, but embracing what NEW thing He is going to do in the year ahead.
God made my way through the wilderness of cancer...it was hard, the hardest thing I have been through. But all along the way, He provided. He gave strength. He gave me joy that can not be explained. He flooded me with peace. He saw every tear and held me through them all. He has given some redemption, and I know He will continue to redeem. And He welcomed Dave home on July 5th this year.
As I sit today and reflect as well as look ahead, I am thankful. I am thankful that I have not walked one day alone. I am thankful for the support my family has had and will continue to have through the body of Christ. I am thankful that God has a plan, a future, a hope for me. It didn't end because my husband died, but He will use that in my life to encourage others. I am thankful that I know Him and He knows me. I am thankful for the fresh start of 2014...that He makes all things NEW!
BRING ON 2014!!! I am ready for a JESUS ADVENTURE!!!!
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