some new year's thoughts

i so rarely write here anymore, simple laziness i suppose. i write every day, i love opening a journal and pulling out an ocean blue pen to script my day's list and thoughts and needs, hopes and dreams spill across a crisp page in which i have glued torn magazine pictures of my favorite flowers or shoes. typing even simply family updates feels sterile to me, always has but i swore to push through it and that the discipline would somehow change the very fabric of my being....i'm a pen and paper girl. if you could only peek into my bedroom and see the tower of scribbled journals teetering next to my nightstand, it would confirm this confession....


however, it's difficult to put those worn pages onto the screen and i really have the desire to share, to live in community with friends near and far, with those i might never meet...create another form of keepsake memories for my kids, for myself.

so in the grand tradition of setting new goals for a fresh new year, i'm promisimg to put my handwriting to the keyboard, even just for a moment a couple times a week. this form of electronic scrapbooking, it's stretching myself to reveal my heart, my mundane tasks, it's a form of ministry for myself, my family, hopefully encouragement for others or at the very least provides a smile.

~~~~~~~~~~

so as we are all venturing out into 2012, looking ahead to what is to be, are you filled with joyful anticipation or hesitancy? trusting that the best is yet to come or longing for what was?

what is it that God whats to do in you in 2012?

i know for me this year will be life-changing! isn't that what walking alongside Christ is supposed to be anyway? just like paul writes in Romans 8, "This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" it's living with expectation of God's goodness, trusting that if He sacrificed nothing to bring us into communion with Him by sending Christ for us, that He is able to be all that we need in 2012!

i know that He is drawing me in closer to Him, whispering love over me and asking for my hand as i travel down new paths. when i ask for the provision of physical and emotional strength to birth and raise another babe, He is there just waiting to provide. i look at this family He has entrusted to me, i tend to get a bit weak in the knees, overwhelmed with all that needs tended to, all this raising of teens and tweens and preschoolers and newborns, husbands that needs encouragement and love, time and caring too. He is there and He never told me i'd have to do it all and that His Grace is more than enough (Phillipians)

my words for the year are Mercy and Grace....that i remember that His mercies are new each day, that the Lord extends His mercy over my faults consistently, that by His grace i am made whole, that His grace is everywhere should i choose to see it....all is Grace, gifts, thanksgiving...Mercy abundant and unconditional for His children

share your word for the year, your goals and dreams, for He is able to 'do more than we could ever imagine or guess or request in our wildest dreams' (Ephesians 3), so let us not hold back and dream a big dream for God's Glory!