A new year is upon us! Most of us look forward to a new year in anticipation. We hope it will bring great and wonderful things. It is also a time to look back over the past year and reflect on the blessings. Many people create resolutions: plans for the new year.

For our family this past year has been one full of blessing. We have been challenged by the Lord in so many ways.

• Seeing blessings even in trials.
• Putting faith into action.
• Standing on convictions the Lord has given our family.
• Trying to live out those convictions out no matter what is going on around us.
• Seeing His sovereignty over our lives.
• Changes in our mindset as we read Scriptural truths.
• Going against the tide in many ways.
• Seeing blessings all around.

These are the many things that we have learned this past year. God has stretched us in ways we never dreamed that we’d be stretched. AND He has blessed in ways we never dreamed about. We have such a long way to go in this sanctification process. He’s burning off the dross trying to refine us.

I think one of the most painful parts of this past year for me was how much it seemed I wasn’t able to do. With Nonna apart of our home, we were tied to the house–a lot. I was constantly having to put off so much with the children. It seemed like they were on the back burner often. Yet, Nonna taught us.

She didn’t know it, but she taught us. We learned what it means to serve. We learned to put ourselves aside and give life to another. We learned to slow down and just be in the moment more. We learned to give beyond ourselves. We learned to put faith into action–James 1–she was a widow in need of a home. Our flesh and blood that needed us to take care of her physical needs as well as her emotional needs.  It was a huge blessing to have her here in our home.

The children had the blessing of knowing their Great Grandmother on a deeper level than most get. They also learned what it means to put their desires aside to help another. They had an opportunity to touch the life of someone who needed them too. They heard stories of the past almost 100 years of time, changes that only time brings, in first person!

Faith grows in the challenges and trials of life. We all wish it wasn’t so. No work, adding two mouths to feed, losing a family member, health issues…these all have brought a deeper faith in God’s sovereignty that I can’t put into words for you.

Looking ahead to next year…what do I dream and hope for it to hold? What do I need the most?

I need to continue to grow closer to the Father. My children need to have more time with me. My husband needs a wife that continues to support him, stand by him and serve him.

Seems the theme for this next year is Time.

I need to redeem the time. To live in the moment more. To use time better. I need to not waste time on things that drag my spirit down and spend more time in the things that have eternal value. The last one I think is one of the biggest for me. I spend too much time worrying about what others think, being hurt by things that don’t matter and trying to be what everyone else wants me to be. And not enough time remembering who God sees, what God wants from me, who He wants me to be. In the end that is what matters.

He has called me into ministry to my family. He has given me an awesome responsibility to raise my children for the Kingdom…a ministry that no one else can do. Wow, the weight of that hangs.

Yet, God.

As I lean on His strength, as I look to Him for wisdom, as He guides me I can do it. Perfectly? No, but as I redeem the time more and more He will take my measly offering and make it into something grand. After all, He loves my husband and children more than I do. He has bigger plans for them more than anything I could dream of.

Going into the new year with God leading will be a great year! No matter what happens. Honestly, I say that with a little fear and trepidation…but God only knows what He will bring and even if there are more trials to come He will be by my side. And if this time next year my faith has grown and been stretched even more I’ll be grateful for that blessing.

This week’s pondering: Repentance and Renewal: looking back on the old year, awaiting the new year

Photos: dinner table candles, Christ candle from Advent wreath, desk gatherings for time with Him