New Beginnings and Clean Slates

I LOVE New Years...mornings, Mondays, start of school...anything that represents a new beginning and a clean slate! I am such a mess up!  I have such great intentions most days, and fail at most of those intentions most days in this season of life.  But I love that EVERY morning, I have a clean slate, a new start!  I love Lamentations 3:22-23 that promises "because of the Lord's mercy and loving-kindness that we are not consumed, because His tender compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great and abundant are your stability and faithfulness." (emphasis mine)

I see every morning as a new beginning full of possibility and God's compassion and mercy that covers all I didn't accomplish or managed to totally mess up yesterday!  And New Year's kind of represents that on a yearly basis for me.  It is a time to reflect on the past year, mark stones of remembrance of God's faithfulness and provision, times of spiritual stretching that hopefully brought growth, and looking at the times I didn't quite hit the mark.  Then I ask God to speak to me about the upcoming year!  For the past four years, sometime between mid December and January 1, God has dropped either a word or two or a scripture in my mind or drawn it out of one of my studies and said it was for the new year.  It's become one of my favorite parts of December....listening to what God has to say about the upcoming year!

For 2013, God gave me the words Faith and Obedience!   The other fun part about God speaking to me about years like that is looking back over the year in my review mirror and seeing just where the words or scriptures God gave encouraged, sustained, prepared and motivated me.  Well, faith and obedience were definitely a theme in 2013!  The obedience part was that I was to hear his voice, even a small whisper, and do it! No questioning, no reasoning, just pure faith, trust and obedience...from "pick up that marker on the floor" to "take in two more children", I tried to simply obey when I heard His voice.  I didn't succeed in all areas.  My weight battle ensued long after I wanted it to, but there was even victory there when I followed through with my obedience!  But as I look back over the year, I know God prepared me for adding two babies to our home and moving our family 5 hours away from our support system of amazing friends and family.

I honestly hadn't thought much about it this year.  We are still trying to unpack from the move.  And with the move, I had done zero shopping for Christmas...and can I tell you that shopping for 8 kids plus extended family is an ordeal?! We also hosted both families this year for Christmas.  Love doing that, but it has meant there has been little alone time with God really except for the few moments I have carved out here and there.  But one of the things I love about my God is that He knows my heart!  He knows that my heart longs to be with Him!  And so even though I hadn't done the "check list" to hear Him, He spoke anyway!  I was actually getting dressed one morning, and just had my worship music on.  I heard joy and consistency.  Took me a minute to figure out why I heard that.  Then I knew.  They are my words for 2014! I am still studying to see just exactly what they mean and what my part is to make sure they remain themes for the year.  But I am excited to see what God does to bring joy and consistency into our family....really, two things that were definitely missing this year!

So I encourage you to get alone with God sometime today and ask Him what He has for you in the coming year!  He is a God of love and mercy, if you have this feeling that you are on God's "naughty" list and are afraid to hear what He has to say, please know that is the enemy!  Yes, God may have some things to say about what you have done, but He loves you enough to send his Son from heaven's seat to a manger in a stable!  He is longing for you to sit with Him and let Him share the good, perfect and full of hope plans He has for you in the coming year!  And if you don't get to that today, you can do it in the morning because every morning is full of new mercies!

Happy New Year blog world friends! I pray God's faithful provision, tangible presence and sustaining JOY over each and every one of you for 2014!