Blank page.
New start.
Fresh mercies of the Lord!
How I do love a new year ahead! Even though nothing changes when Ryan Seacrest announces the new year from Madison Square Gardens, I love what a new year represents. I know I am the same person at 12:00am as I was at 11:59pm, but the potential seems bursting with freshness!
As the chapter entitled "2012" opens I am excited to commit my own inconsistencies to our faithful God. I am so thankful that He is faithful when I am not, cause I am not too often! But as the new year dawns, I am asking him for a fresh anointing.
Lord, give me ears to hear you and feet to do as you say!!
I am looking to soak deeper into the Word this year. To know Him with increasing intimacy. He is everything! I am looking to be fit and healthy so as to have the stamina to pursue Him with passion and follow Him wherever He leads me!
But the thing I don't like about "resolutions" for the new year is that by mid-March (at best) they fizzle out. But if I seek Jesus for intentional direction, He is faithful to lead the way. He is the Shepherd that leads His sheep in the way they should go.
Show me, Lord!
So rather than resolutions, I prayerfully hold out these expectations on myself as an offering to the Lord. So should the Lord tarry for the next 365 days and He leaves me on this side of glory, then I pray at the end of them I will know Him with increased intimacy and I will be healthier than I am today. For His glory and by His grace!!!
May your New Year be filled to overflowing with His Presence!!
Happy 2012!!
December 31, 2011
December 29, 2011
Turning the page on 2011
I have always loved to write. I remember scribbling out story after story in my notebooks when I was only ten years old. I would try to think of new ways to start stories all the time!
There was just something about a new, blank notebook that was nearly sacred to me. Still is.
I have a heart for fresh starts. Maybe because I have desperately needed so many of them! I love mornings, new calendars and blank slates!
But before I take a deep breath in a new year, I am offering the Lord thanksgiving for a year overflowing with abundance. 2011 has been marked by God's grace on my family in so many ways...too many to list here and some too personal. But after a handful of painful years, 2011 closes as a year of unbelievable mercy and grace. My God was faithful in the painful years, but He flat blessed my socks off this year!!
It certainly has not all be roses...every grouping of 365 days will have good days and bad. But hindsight is 20/20 isn't it? So I love to pause in the last days before tossing the old calendar and just reflect on the overall colors of the year like an observer in a museum. Taking a step back and soaking in the big picture.
This morning the Lord reminded me He is El Roi...the God who Sees. He has not missed one moment. He has seen it all and He goes before you and I into 2012 and foresees it all. Regardless what the new chapter holds, The Writer has a plan and it is beautiful.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you will overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13 NIV
There was just something about a new, blank notebook that was nearly sacred to me. Still is.
I have a heart for fresh starts. Maybe because I have desperately needed so many of them! I love mornings, new calendars and blank slates!
But before I take a deep breath in a new year, I am offering the Lord thanksgiving for a year overflowing with abundance. 2011 has been marked by God's grace on my family in so many ways...too many to list here and some too personal. But after a handful of painful years, 2011 closes as a year of unbelievable mercy and grace. My God was faithful in the painful years, but He flat blessed my socks off this year!!
It certainly has not all be roses...every grouping of 365 days will have good days and bad. But hindsight is 20/20 isn't it? So I love to pause in the last days before tossing the old calendar and just reflect on the overall colors of the year like an observer in a museum. Taking a step back and soaking in the big picture.
This morning the Lord reminded me He is El Roi...the God who Sees. He has not missed one moment. He has seen it all and He goes before you and I into 2012 and foresees it all. Regardless what the new chapter holds, The Writer has a plan and it is beautiful.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you will overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13 NIV
December 22, 2011
The Irony of God
Though I have been MIA lately on the blog, the unseasonably warm weather on this first day of winter was ironic enough to inspire a few words. As I sit on my back deck and watch the birds flutter around bare trees, I am struck by the irony of God.
Today is the first day of winter, yet the current temperature (which should be in the high 40s) is in the high 60s (maybe 70* right now!)! Ironic, huh? I mean, it IS the first day of WINTER!!
I realize in FL this is not very interesting, but in NC it is enough to make us notice.
How ironic God can be...
Just this morning I read these words "she gave birth to her firstborn, a son." Scripture tells us this is no ordinary son...it is the incarnate Son of the Living God. God Himself made flesh to live among us.
A young virgin. Pregnant. Ironic...miraculous!
The irony lies in the fact that this very woman, young, poor, common...would not have been allowed anywhere near the Holy Place in the Temple in Jerusalem. It was a sacred place where God met with man. Where the Glory of God dwelt among men. Only the High Priest could go into such a holy place.
Yet in the womb of this virgin grew and kicked and rolled the very Presence of the Living God. She could not approach the Holy Place, yet her womb had become The Holy Place of God until she brought Him forth that first Christmas day.
Luke 2:7 goes on to say "She wrapped Him in cloths and placed Him in a manger." The God-man crossed the Temple curtain and was wrapped in the filthy, smelly cloths of humanity and laid in a feeding trough. He made Himself tangible.
The One and Only Living God reaches out to make Himself tangible to you and me and anyone willing to pause and see. Shepherds. Astrologers. Common folk. You. Me.
Today I acknowledge and praise the One who paused to make Himself tangible to me through a warm breeze on a winter afternoon.
Today is the first day of winter, yet the current temperature (which should be in the high 40s) is in the high 60s (maybe 70* right now!)! Ironic, huh? I mean, it IS the first day of WINTER!!
I realize in FL this is not very interesting, but in NC it is enough to make us notice.
How ironic God can be...
Just this morning I read these words "she gave birth to her firstborn, a son." Scripture tells us this is no ordinary son...it is the incarnate Son of the Living God. God Himself made flesh to live among us.
A young virgin. Pregnant. Ironic...miraculous!
The irony lies in the fact that this very woman, young, poor, common...would not have been allowed anywhere near the Holy Place in the Temple in Jerusalem. It was a sacred place where God met with man. Where the Glory of God dwelt among men. Only the High Priest could go into such a holy place.
Yet in the womb of this virgin grew and kicked and rolled the very Presence of the Living God. She could not approach the Holy Place, yet her womb had become The Holy Place of God until she brought Him forth that first Christmas day.
Luke 2:7 goes on to say "She wrapped Him in cloths and placed Him in a manger." The God-man crossed the Temple curtain and was wrapped in the filthy, smelly cloths of humanity and laid in a feeding trough. He made Himself tangible.
The One and Only Living God reaches out to make Himself tangible to you and me and anyone willing to pause and see. Shepherds. Astrologers. Common folk. You. Me.
Today I acknowledge and praise the One who paused to make Himself tangible to me through a warm breeze on a winter afternoon.
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