Earlier this year I published this blog
Perseverance January 2012 about my goal for this year...my motto for this year. I really was excited for 2012: My brother getting married to my friend, performing their wedding, being licensed through the Assembly of God as a pastor, VBS and kids camp. Here it is 7 months later and what a year it has been. There has been good, there has been annoyances and there has been A LOT of perseverance going on! If I only knew how much this would help me, steer me and guide me this year.
January a dear friend told me about trouble in her marriage. It rocked my boat. If two people that I loved, respected and knew so well could go through trouble, what kept any of us. It's one of my biggest fears and seeing it played out in front of me was hard. That's when I knew this would be the year to keep chugging along.
January - April was spent helping plan my brothers wedding. He and his now wife live thousands of miles away, so her sister, our moms and I aided in a lot of activities here, where they were getting married. It was an amazing event and we gained a wonderful addition to our family with my new sister-in-law. Not only did I help with the planning, co-hosted a shower, put on a rehearsal dinner, but I also performed the wedding. I'm a behind-the-scenes person by nature, so granting them this request was hard for me. I'm so glad I did it and not really sure I want to do it again.
In April I was also officially licensed as a pastor through The Assemblies of God. I was given the license last September, but had to go through the ceremony.
In mid-May the attached town home next to ours caught on fire. A cigarette was not properly extinguished and caused exterior damage to their home and filled all 3 attached town homes with smoke. We had to move out of our home for 2 weeks, after spending a week trying to clean it ourselves. It was a long 10+ week process, which included having every article of fabric professional cleaned (clothes, curtains, furniture, duct work, carpeting, towels, etc), new siding put on the house, garage attic cleaned, etc. This all happened during my busiest season at church.
My husbands family held a week-long Family Reunion to celebrate a cousins High School Graduation. Thankfully it was in town, but we were only able to make about half the activities, due to just moving back into our home, putting everything back and getting ready to leave for camp. I also missed all but 1 of the graduation open houses I was invited to. It was so sad, since this is the first year the students graduating were in Children's Ministry when I started at the church.
June we attend a week-long camp in Northern MN for kids in grades 3- 6. I help plan camp all year long with a team of Children's Pastors. Camp was amazing and I didn't want to come home.
The day after camp was done we were at church getting ready for VBS. We spent long days at the church for 2 weeks planning and implementing the best VBS we've ever done. We had 50% visitors and the biggest turn out in volunteers ever each night.
As soon as VBS was done June 30th I had until July 21st to complete 3 school courses, that I had to extend due to missing the deadlines before. I told my church that I was going into hiding and I would see them on Sundays and Wednesdays, but the rest of the time I'm going to be working on school. I actually finished my classes a week early and got started on the next ones. Things went so well that I've decided to keep going until I'm done. I'm motivated and I've been given permission to keep chugging along. This is 4 years in the making and the complete sense of relief and release of guilt off my shoulders has been AMAZING. I feel so light and happy. The downside is all the sitting has wrecked my back. Pray for healing for me, please.
All this is to say, If I had not kept going it would have been easy to give-up. My first response it always to flee rather than fight. I hate conflict, I hate fighting and I had when things get hard. I'm a happy little otter that likes to swim around in the my little pond and not have ANY waves.
This is what I wrote on January 9, 2012:
"I’m so excited for
2012. Coming out of a very hard year, I’m ready to move ahead and
firmly keep my feet planted on God’s Word and promises. I’m ready to
fight, grow, love, laugh, learn and explore. I’m feeling healthier,
stronger and freer…blessed with a great group of Godly counsel, friends
and new hope. I opened up a devotional I’ve had for a couple of years
on new years day to find exactly what I needed to help me on the journey
of 2012. The first five days of the devotional go over the same verse
“We will reap a harvest if we do not give up” Galatians 6:19 NIV. Woah,
I want to see the harvest, but I’m good at giving up."
I most definitely fought, grown, loved, laughed, learned and
explored. I have great family, friends, a church and I serve and love
an amazing God who equips me with the things I need, as long as I'm
obedient and teachable. I'm very excited to see how the rest of the year goes and what lessons I'll learn.
