humility and blessing

Happy 2013

this is a great picture of how we're looking these days

despite being sick virtually every week since mid November

and despite knowing what happens during Season 3 of Downton Abbey

but, because God is so good

He is so faithful

and my constant surprise and awe of it, just reveals my lack of faith and knowledge of who He is

just to get it out of the way

we had a really nice Christmas at home

following a blessed trip to Southern California to visit these lovely people

but I don't really want to talk about our christmas

or how proud I am of my husband and the work he's done his first semester

or show pictures of our fun in December, though I probably will cause I just can't help it

But it being a new year, I just want to look back at 2012 and share where the Lord has brought us

First of all, this time last January, I had no idea that I would be writing this post from a different house,

 a different city, different state. But God in His rich mercy had a new plan (new to us), and a new place

 for us. And so I want to declare right now, come 2014 I have no idea where I'll be writing this post

 from (though, I hope its from here cause Jason's program isn't scheduled to end until after that).

But as I look back on 2012, I feel like it can only be described in two words

BLESSING and HUMILITY

As much as this has been a year of huge blessing

and I mean huge

it has been filled with just as many humbling moments

hard moments, very uncomfortable moments, but really good moments

My mom once said that we project our own sin on others

and boy is that true!

I have noticed that in the last year I have been very quick to judge people staying in their comfort zone

complaining about why some stay in the same place, eat the same things, talk to the same people

and it never changes

then of course these last four months of being in this new place, shopping at different stores, 

talking to new people, not eating at the usual spots 

(Little Lucca's, Big Mouth,  Crepevine,  Rubio's)

and experiencing the real fear, that precedes the blessing of living on faith, 

oh how I missed my comfort zone

longed for it

needed it 

so clearly seeing that what I had so ruthlessly sought to discover in others

was what the Spirit was really searching to weed out in me

There's a song we sing at our church, and it has a line I never want to forgot

"Fences guard our hearts and homes,

Comfort sings a sirens tone,

We've become a valley of dry bones,

Lead us back to life in You"

I'm not over my comfort idol

I struggle with running back to it every day, in my thoughts

and in my hesitancy to do good works, because they come in the form of uncomfortable situations

Oh Lord, thank you for showing me my wicked ways

Forgive me for looking down on others, when all I was doing was pin-pointing my own sin

the whole "he who has no sin, cast the first stone" has become ever so clear this year

Isn't it almost always the case, that we judge most harshly on sins we are most guilty?

And we are most gracious about sin we are most forgiven

I want to be described by the latter.