It’s easy to look back on the past year and regurgitate all the significant moments and events that happened. But what’s the use if you haven’t learned anything from those times? There is one word that sums up the bulk of what God has taught me this year: FAITH.

I thank God everyday for community. I have witnessed so many close lives around us stand in faith when the circumstances they were facing screamed at them to do otherwise. Here a just a few of the faith stories that have impacted my life in a significant way this year.

I watched Bryon and Susan give glory and praise to God through every step of their darkness and pain. Then I helped them move into a beautiful apartment back in South Florida last month. They’re now back home with their gorgeous new daughter.

I saw Chris and Penny stand solid in their calling to adopt two children from Russia even when easier opportunities presented themselves again and again. Through two years of waiting and false expectations, I watched their boys walk through a Miami terminal this year, finally home.

I heard of my uncle’s sudden and unexpected divorce and saw his pain that came with being alone. I watched him give up his life to God and then witnessed what God does best: change a life. He’s now a man of incredible trust and faith.

I saw my close friend go through two miscarriages in a matter 0f 6 months. I watched her and her husband give everything up to God and in return be blessed with an amazing, healthy new pregnancy.

I joined with the church staff and pastors as we fasted and prayed for a building that seemed unlikely and financially risky. Then, we worshipped together August 24th in our new buidling: exactly 11 years to the day of Calvary Jupiter’s first Sunday.

I watched and joined with my parents as we prayed for a complete healing of my dad’s knee after his replacement surgery. After more than half a year of immobility and surgeries, God healed him when the odds were stacked against it. He’s walking more and moving more at age 52 then he was at age 32.

I’ve even watched my own husband step out into the unknown. Going through interim manager training last year meant that Chick-fil-a could place us anywhere in the country for any length of time. But we trusted and knew that God was in control. 5 months later, Andrew stepped into his very own store as the owner/operator.

And this year is already calling for new steps of faith. And I have learned to face them head on, fully believing, trusting and speaking God’s promises. These are some of the verses that have become so precious to me this year and I claim them as we pray about some specific things that God has laid on our heart.

2 Corinthians 4: 13, “But have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed therefore I spoke.’ We also believe, therefore we also speak.”

Hebrews 11:11, “Since she considered Him faithful who had promised.”

Luke 1:45, “And blessed is she who believed there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord.”

Mark 11:24, “Therefore, I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them and they will be granted you.”

Romans 4:20-21, “Yet with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.”

I want my faith to grow deeper and wider in 2009. If nothing else, may this next year be a greater year of faith for me.

These are some pictures I took recently of the beautiful Thompson kids.

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One thing that never gets old is watching God move in people’s lives. I will always be amazed by another life changed from darkness to freedom. This past Sunday, 31 people were baptized. It was our first baptism at the building, just another reminder of God’s goodness and faithfulness. It’s even more impactful when you truly know some of these people. Where they’ve been and how far they’ve come in just a matter of 6 months or a year. If changed lives aren’t a testament to the realness and goodness of God, I don’t know what else can convince you.

I am fascinated with childhood.

A child at play can stop me. I lose my to-do list, set aside my busyness and am captivated by the freedom and wonder only a child contains.

I’ve made a conscious choice never to lose my child-likeness. If there’s opportunity to play, to create, to lose myself in the moment, never do I want to be too sophisticated.

Jesus calls us to become like little children. What a strange command that is. We rush over that many times, thinking he simply means we need faith like a child. While that’s true, I think there’s more.

May we become like children.

Free of burdens. Free of time. Free of worried thoughts, cluttering our minds. Free to create with crayons, or paint, or blocks what’s in our imaginations. Free to play with muddy knees and sweaty foreheads. Free to crawl up on daddy’s lap. Free to dance and twirl and sing our hearts out. Free to completely trust.

When we become like that, when we we become that free, then as Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” And only Jesus can make us that free.

One of my favorite books is Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water where she writes, “When we are like little children, then we retain our ability to be creators, our willingness to be open, to believe. Only the most mature of us are able to be childlike. And to be able to be childlike involves memory; we must never forget any part of ourselves. As of this writing I am sixty-one years old in chronology. But I am not an isolated, chronological numerical statistic. I am sixty-one, and I am also four, and twelve, and fifteen, and twenty-three, and thirty-one, and forty-five, and…and…and… If we lose any part of ourselves, we are thereby diminished. If I cannot be thirteen and sixty-one simultaneously, part of me has been taken away.”

How many people do you know who have forgotten part of themselves? They’ve forgotten to remember.

But I am the sum of each moment of my life. I’m allowed to see the world through my four-year old eyes. I can experience my husband with the same freshness of my sixteen year-old heart. I’m able to examine a newborn puppy with the wonder of my two-year old senses.

So I give you permission to skip in public, laugh without hesitation and sing at the top of your lungs. Maybe when we start to let go, we’ll be found again by the Creator of this universe who so badly wants us to crawl up on His lap and call him Daddy.

So often we crowd ourselves, leaving no room for air. Our humanity is lost among the noise we constantly run towards. The T.V. is on, the phone ringing, our schedule is maxed. We’re terrified to rest. To be with just ourselves. What are we so afraid of? If our souls are bare and we are quiet long enough to be alone, do we trust in God to be enough?

The price of consumption is too high. It’s waste. Pure waste of something deeper: discovering who we are and the God who speaks to us in whispers.

 

Thank you Lord for a full heart. For placing a barrier of love around me. From the small steps of my past to the leaps of the present, always there have been people to show me You. I’m still learning. I still mess up. But oh how thankful I am for the grace of those around me. There is a peace and a warmth that cannot be pinned down when I think of the faces that make up my mural. Thank you for being a perfect Artist. I am blessed.