Since I’ve already involved the internet in what God is doing in my 2017, I figured I would continue. Here we go.

At times I get self conscious that everything I end up writing is straight from my journal – always personal and vulnerable experiences vs. ideas and revelations. I guess they’re maybe one in the same and I shouldn’t worry about it.

I have to kind of give the context for what happened today. A friend shared a sermon with me that I knew I should try to watch today, entitled “Words to Live By” by Craig Groschel. If you have time, go look it up. It’s really great. Anyway, it encouraged me to write my own “declarations” to speak over my life each day.

As I began to think about what lies I’ve believed about myself, and which truths I needed to replace them with, I first just told God where I was at. I told him that as I was fasting this week, I was getting a little impatient because I wasn’t really feeling much. I told him that I was ready to hear His voice. I told Him  my heart and mind were open.

Then I began to think. I knew my first lie I believed about myself had to do with my marriage. So, as usual, I googled “bible verses on…” what I was struggling with, and it brought me to Ephesians 5 on “Wives and Husbands.” I read it through it via Safari on my phone, and was kind of like, “yeah, this isn’t what I’m looking for.” So instead of opening my Bible App to continue, which I so often do, or just search for another verse, I opened up my actual Bible. As I opened up the spread, the passage I just read was on the right side of the page. My eyes drifted to the left side where I saw 2 verses previously underlined and highlighted.

“I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” Ephesians 4:1-2

There aren’t the right kind of words probably in any language to explain what reading this felt like. Except that I told God I was ready to hear His voice – and He was ready, too.

When I became a stay at home mom, it became so quickly evident that it was harder than I imagined. Duh. But it was what I wanted. I prayed for it for years. And it finally happened and some days I felt like I was physically losing my mind. (At times, still do. I think that comes with the territory.) But one day when I felt like I was failing across the board, God brought me to this verse to remind me that my calling was not just youth ministry or “church.”Or that because I didn’t have a “job” anymore, I had lost some of my calling. My calling was in my home; and in this season, my job as a mother. My calling was not a place or a title. My calling was in the moments where no one else saw what I was doing. I actually have this verse on a sign in my living room. It’s one of my favorite gifts from my husband.

But what is insane to me is that I didn’t just underline that one sentence last year. I underlined the second one. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

My word for this year? Gentleness.

I underlined these two sentences over a year ago. And last week God told me that my word for the year was gentleness. I probably haven’t opened up my Bible to this page since that day a year ago.

I’m still a little in awe at the chain of events that led me to this page, this sentence. And the more I read it, the more I feel like this string of words were put together in the Bible just for me. I know that’s not real, but I don’t care. God cares enough about me to let me be a little dramatic about it.

This was not about me just finding my word again. This was about God’s voice being the same, and fulfilling new things with age-old promises. This was about being honest with God about where I was; tired and impatient – but laying it down and telling Him I was done with all that and ready to hear from Him again. I felt in my heart that I was tired of talking, and ready to listen. And it was almost as if He breathed a sigh of relief with me, and said, “Well, okay then. Here’s what I’ve had waiting to show you.”

The real miracle of the day is that my kids napped long enough for me to work out, take a shower, and then get to have this time. That’s a miracle in itself. And all the SAHMs said, “Amen.”