Wrapping Up 2019

With 2019 wrapping up I went back and read my post from wrapping up 2018. It made me realize how much has changed in just one year. And what a lot of changes there have been! Before I get into that let me just remind you of what my word for 2019 was. This is a paragraph from the last post of 2018 that I copied and pasted below.

Anyways eventually I picked the word 'home'. Sounds a little funny but the fact is that home is not just a physical place. God is our refuge and, in the coming year, I want to really dwell on the fact that my home, my security and my identity is not wrapped up in things or places or even other people, it's all centered on God. He is my strength, my refuge, the one that supplies my every need. He is my home.

Home. How I still love that word. I did carry it through this year with me. I had to continually remember that my security and identity is in Him. It's not in the things I do, or the people that I surround myself with. There have been times, especially in the last couple of months that it's been particularly hard to remember that He supplies my every need. And yet like every other year I've been reminded that God never will let me down or give up on me. That's why He's the one that I need to find refuge in.

If I tried to tell you everything that has happened in the last year we would be here until the start of 2020. So instead I'll just hit some highlights.

I moved. Getting into our house was a miracle. We were looking for a new place, things weren't coming up. We finally had friends of my roommates offer us a place that we were going to accept. It was a great house but made for a long commute for all of us. As we were preparing to go there a house that we had looked at but hadn't been able to make work came back on the market. We have been so blessed with our new place!

I stepped down from youth ministry. After three years of working with some amazing kids and my fantastic leaders our ministry came to end this year. Our high school students had graduated and the kids coming up were in middle school. The program didn't work for the younger age group so after a lot of prayer I chose to step down as youth director so someone else could step in and run a new program for the younger kids. It was a very emotional time but I can see God's leading in that decision.

We found a new church! I've written about this before but it bears repeating. After stepping down from youth ministry one of my roommates and I decided to find a new church. A few months ago we settled on a wonderful church home where we are thriving. We have a small group we attend, a regular service we go to and soon we'll start attending a second Bible study.

I'm looking for a job. Earlier this fall the company I was working for made the very hard decision to close their doors. Almost all of the employees have now been laid off, including me. So I've been sending out resumes and going to interviews and trusting God to bring the right job in His time, not mine.

So that's my 2019. Or at least some of the highlights. 2020 is going to bring some insane changes. A few of them I already know are coming but I'm sure there will be tons I haven't seen coming. I'm not picking a word for next year. I'm just going to try enjoy it and see what God brings.

What's your 2020 bringing? Drop me a note in the comments, I'd love to hear what you're up to!

Sharing the Joy of Christmas

For those of you who have been with me for a while you'll remember that I moved in April. I stayed with my same roommates but we moved to a bigger house. Our new house is on a quiet little street with several neighbors. Due to our crazy schedules we haven't had much time to get to know them. A couple of months ago one of my roommates, Lauren, and I decided that it would be fun to bake Christmas cookies and share them with the neighbors this year.

Over the last couple of weeks we mixed and baked 10 dozen sugar cookies the stuck them in the freezer. This weekend we pulled them all out to decorate. Well it turns out that all of my creativity goes into writing my books (and learning how to knit on a loom- that's a recent accomplishment we can talk about later) and not into anything else. So well I started decorating the cookies I really struggled with it but Lauren, who is super artsy, was able to finish them and did an amazing job!

We also decided that we would get Christmas cards to go with them. Without knowing our neighbors there's no good way to share about Christ. We don't want to be pushy but we did want to find a way to be able to share why we celebrate Christmas. We found these cards that say Peace on Earth and have a few words inside about celebrating the birth of Christ. We wrote Merry Christmas on them, signed our names and wrapped up the cookies.

We started this plan just wanting to spread a little joy but the reactions we got blessed us more then we could've imagined. One neighbor is a single dad who only has his son part time. He almost started to cry when we gave him his cookies and card. He told us that this is the first Christmas thing he's received this year.

Another neighbor is a small family, we've never had much of a chance to talk to them but the mom seemed really grateful and the kids were excited for the sugar! There's a neighbor who's an older woman that lives alone. She invited us into her home and we learned that she keeps an eye out for us on our house because she knows we all work different schedules and she just wants to make sure everything's okay with us.

One other neighbor wasn't home when we delivered their cookies but she wrote us a thank you card and stuck in our mail box. In addition to our neighbors we took cookies to our favorite coffee shop. The baristas were so excited and touched that we had thought of them. And we took cookies to a little food cart we like. The owner was so thrilled she took a picture and posted it on their Facebook page thanking us!

We never told anyone we were Christians. We didn't have long conversations. All we did was take some of our time and wrote out some cards to try and bless others. In the end we were incredibly blessed.

So there's our story of sharing the joy this Christmas.

Connections

My mom is most definitely an extrovert. She can make friends with people standing in line at the grocery store. People energize her. She reaches points where she needs time alone but over all she thrives on social interaction. 

I'm much more of an introvert. I like people but being around them drains me. Because of the differences in our personalities Mom remembers people and how they connect to each other. She can meet someone and learn that they know her sister's best friend's daughter because they went to college together at the same school where... well you get it. She makes connections with people in ways that typically make my head spin.

I meet people and think how nice they are but it takes me quite a while to get to know them before I may or may not discover connections they have to other people I know. Most of the time the connections just make me smile. Sometimes they give me reassurance that God put them in my life for a reason.

The other day I was at church and through talking to someone I discovered that he knew my aunt and uncle and his wife worked for friends of theirs that I've also met before. Through learning that his wife teasingly told me that I must be at the right church because of the connection.

After discovering that surprising connection it got me thinking about how God weaves our lives together. His family is massive, every believer all over the world is part of the Lord's family and because of that, no matter where we go, we can find family. Even if they're not with us in person we have a massive family standing behind us, praying for us, supporting us. 

That's the connections that God weaves together to give His children support on earth. Amazing isn't it?

December

When I was a kid December was my favorite month. It always felt just a little bit magical. There's Christmas decorations and music, breaks from school and loved ones visiting. There's extra sweets and Christmas movies on T.V. I loved every moment of it.

As I've gotten older sometimes I lose my love of the season as I get too wrapped up with stress and busyness and trying to find the right gifts. However I still try to find those magical moements that I loved so much as a kid.

This year I've already had a few, starting with getting our Christmas tree up and decorated. Finding the perfect gift for a friend that I've been searching for. Listening to some Christmas music and even fitting in a couple of Christmas movies.

And going through an Advent study during my devotional time each morning and at church starting last week.

This time of year may be stressful but try to focus on the magic and the real reason for it all and don't let the stress of everyday life get you down.

Below I posted a picture of our Christmas tree those year. Leave me a picture of your Christmas decorations in the comments, I'd love to see them!