One Year Ago.......

For the first time in my life I did not spend New Year's Eve at church.(Oh Snap) Well, see, what happend was......my church here in Charlotte was so packed, 15 mins after it started that my family of 5 couldn't be seated and not wanting to stand in the back with 3 little ones, we opted to just go home. However, I actually had a wonderful night with the kids and my husband thanks to Just Dance 3, the Time Square Ball Drop, and the good folks down the street setting off fireworks (is that legal in NC???).

Anyways, after my husband and I put the kiddos down I started to think about where I was this time last year. And I realized just how far God has brought me and my family in one year's time. This time last year I was in Ohio, at church, just the kids and I, and while everyone was downstairs celebrating the New Year and eating the after service breakfast, I was in the sanctuary, pacing and crying out to God. You see this time last year my husband and I were separated and on the brink of divorce. We had tried counseling (a few times), time apart, talking, etc, but our marriage was at the point that nothing could help BUT GOD.

God told me that night that He would restore our marriage. Yet, as much as I wanted to I really didn't believe it. We were just too far gone. But God said that not only would He restore but He would give us a new love, a deeper love. Again, I didn't believe, but I asked Him to help me believe and trust that He would do what He said. Now, it didn't happen overnight, but 6 months after that conversation God restored us and since then we have been growing and loving each other more everyday. Not to say we don't have disagreements or annoy the heck out of each other. But we both are firmly rooted in the fact that "never again", never again will we speak divorce, never again will we take our marriage out of God's hands, because that's where it belongs.

This is my testimony, and it may not seem like a big deal to you, but it is to me and my family. Through the hardest times of that 6 months when it seemed everyone around me was telling me in one way or another to give up and prepare to move on, I still held on to what God spoke to me on New Years Eve. God can and will take a situation that looks dead, that everyone says is finished and not only revive it, but give it a brand new life, better than before. Trust God for whatever situation is heavy on your heart as you go into this New Year, and praise Him for the next New Year's Eve when you'll look back and remember how God did it for you in 2013!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Shiny New Toys!!!



Lord knows I have loved the Christmas holiday since I was a little girl. But now being the mother of 3 and having 2 nephews all between the ages of 8 and 3 to buy for Christmas has become quite stressful. "Toys Toys Toys" has been the main thing playing in my head for the last month. I try to enjoy the season, the cheer and most of all the celebration of the birth of my Lord and Savior but I'll admit it gets clouded with compulsion of consumerism.

Thankfully with the kids I buy for they seem to be impressed with how much they have and how shiny it is instead of what it is exactly. For example, they are all young enough to be impressed with lots of cheap shiny gifts under the tree that make it look grand and impressive than a couple really expensive gifts that may make the scene look less impressive. And these less expensive gifts might entertain them for awhile but ultimately they will grow tired of them.

However, as children get older they learn the importance of quality over quantity. They prefer a gaming system or a new computer to multiple less expensive gifts. They are no longer distracted by the shine, they want something that will last longer and they can do more with. (It's time to start teaching my kids that consumerism is wrong and that we just need to be together for Christmas instead of buying gifts) :)

In 1 Corinthians 13:11, it reads "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." As Christians on our walk with Christ, especially in the beginning, as we are learning the way, we might be impressed by charismatic preachers or enjoy music that are good to the ears but ultimately empty and meant for show and not helping us grow. We might be drawn to churches with the largest attendance assuming that they are doing the most for the Lord. But as we "grow up" in Christ, we learn to prefer substance over the shine. We will learn to see past the show and prefer things that will outlast this world and this life and usher us into the next.