Happy New Year!
Can I still say that?
We are over two weeks into this New Year, and I’m afraid that I am still lingering around January first in my mind. I expect February will be here by the time I have fully adjusted to the reality of 2014. There is so much to look back on in 2013, that it is hard for me to say that chapter is finished, to really turn the page. So the first week of January, before Chris and I really jumped feet first into this New Year, we took some time to look back.
To remember, to name what God had done and to give thanks.
A week into the New Year was not too late, and I’m hoping that two weeks isn’t either. Because there is still so much that needs to be said about 2013.
We began 2013 in New Zealand.
New Zealand.
We never dreamed we would go back there so soon (if after five years is soon) and I believe God took us there for many reasons.
There were some people we needed to meet, some stories we needed to hear and tell, some things we needed to lay down, some miracles God needed to perform. But more than all that (or through all of that) Jesus wanted to draw us nearer to Himself, to show us more of Himself, to demonstrate His sufficiency, to turn our gazes away from ourselves.
We learned about blooming where He plants us and then allowed Him to uproot us again, so that we could make Austria our ‘home’ for (part of) the rest of the year. ☺ God fulfilled my dream of being an RA at the Bible school in Austria, and God showed me why I shouldn’t be afraid to dream. We spent the summer back and forth from North America, and working at the Torchbearers Centres in England, Switzerland, Germany, and Albania, and then He brought us back to Austria, just after the tragic death of the Centre’s director. And we will always remember, God is love.
We spent the last few months of the year as RA’s again at Tauernhof, witnessing the incredible grace God extended to the staff through faith as they carried on after such a sudden loss. We witnessed God working in the lives of the Bible school students, and were so blessed by them. And as the end of the year approached, the promise of Christmas, and Christ coming for us, was just the encouragement we needed as we returned home with a somewhat uncertain 2014 ahead.
And now after extended family time, lots of cookies, and new years celebrations, here we are in 2014.
There have been these little moments in the past few weeks of this New Year, that God has just pricked at my heart this idea, this truth, this necessary story-telling element- that things take time. That He is faithful through the time.
I have had such a deep sense of God’s providence over the last year, and especially this past week or so He has been bringing into full focus.
We were up north with Chris’s parents this New Years, when Chris got a phone call from the director of Ravencrest, the Torchbearers Centre we are moving to next month, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Two years ago, at this time, Chris and I were up north at his parent’s place, and we got a phone call from the director of Ravencrest, the Torchbearers Centre we were about to move out to a few weeks later. I was sick and terrified and miserable, and God spoke so kindly through this phone call, extending grace and comfort and inviting trust during a time when I thought He was completely out to lunch. I honestly couldn’t see past the next day, and I had very little interest in the future, because today sucked. Totally sucked. I had zero faith at that time that God would carry us as He has these last two years, and I was just overwhelmed-blown away, and it takes my breath away even now, thinking that here we are two years later. And we get the same phone call.
And He extends grace and comfort and invites us to trust Him. And there is no such thing as ‘irony’ here. He is purposeful, and my eyes are opened to His providence (His wisdom, foresight, provision, far-sightedness).
He was far-sighted when I was near-sighted. He was two years ago. And He is today.
And my prayer for you today is that you may have a deep sense of God’s providence in your life too, that you can look back on 2013, and see His fingerprints everywhere, and have hope for this coming year.
The Mainlands 