Happy New Year!

Friends, I'm a brand new person. We had a great Christmas with family and ended our break with a "Mommy/Daddy only" trip to Dallas for New Year's! It was what both Stu and I needed to end this CRAZY year! Emma stayed with Nana and PawPaw in Eustace and we hit the road!!! We missed her, but I gotta be honest, it was stinkin' glorious to wake up, not just one but two mornings, whenever the heck I wanted!!!! Ahhhhh:)

I have purposed in my heart that I am healed and moving on. No more anger. No more bitterness. No more fighting with God. It's 2011 and anything's possible. Stu bought me a chronological Bible for Christmas and I am determined to stick with the plan to read it all the way through this year. If you knew how dark I've been inside for the past year or so, you'd know just how big a deal that is. Music is about the only way I'd allow the Lord to speak to me and heal me. Prayer was tough and reading the Bible was even harder. Those of you that attend Immanuel, know this, as I've yet to make it two consecutive Sundays without flat losing it during worship! There is no more naked and authentic place for me than on that stage Sunday mornings. I can run and hide all week long, but He always finds me there. I believe with all my heart that God never abandoned me and that He has always had my purpose in place. I know that ultimately the events of this past year have and will continue to give Him glory. I have repeated these things out loud and in my head like a mantra and they are taking finally root in my heart.

Who knows what this year will bring. I hope, with all that is in within me, that 2011 brings a healthy pregnancy and one last baby that we actually get to bring home. I hope for no complications and a 20 minute and pain-free delivery:) I hope that Emma is out of diapers and knows how to put others in them by the time this happens:) I hope that Stu and I grow closer to each other and to the Lord. I hope that we can initiate the get-out-of-debt plan we came up with this fall and that it will be effective. I hope that those that I love are healthy, happy and unimaginably blessed. I hope that God would revive my passion for my ministry and give me fresh ideas and guidance. Hope is a powerful thing. I believe it's what helps us abandon everything that holds us back, grab ahold of God and just cling to Him for dear life.

Have hope this year. Believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that your hand is in His, and He's not letting go. No matter where you go and what you go through, He has promised to stay with you. That, my friends, is what hope is all about.