Well friends, here we are again. We are approaching the completion of my 33rd year, and preparing to move into my 34th.To say this has been a full year would be a complete understatement.
Last year on my birthday: I was single, I had a single child, and I had a PLAN.
I'll never forget that this time last year, I sat in one of my favorite sushi restaurants and mapped out my goals in every single area of my life (finances, fitness, love, parenting, career, faith, friendships, family). They were S.M.A.R.T goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely). I dotted all of my i's and crossed all of my t's.
Friends, you should have seen the look on my face, as I carefully closed my journal and sat back in my seat, taking the time to savor the last piece of tuna complemented by the perfect glass of
Sauvignon Blanc. I was reassured. I felt safe. I knew that my plan would be fiercely executed with gazelle-like intensity. I smiled, smugly, knowing this time next year I would be well positioned to live out my life in fulfilled bliss, financially secure with all the world as my oyster.
Well, funny thing about a plan... even the most intricately thought out plan, is one that God can see from afar. It amuses Him so and you might even hear Him laughing out loud as He puts his Hand in your life and shakes your whole world up.
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't that I didn't want another child, or a marriage. It was that I was in a place of complete acceptance as to what I
was given. My heart was given a great capacity for love, and if the good Lord wasn't planning on giving me a Husband and more children, you could bet your bottom dollar I wasn't going to let it go to waste.
That brings me to here. The Lord has provided for me a wonderful, loving Husband, and another amazing and beautiful daughter.
I could have never in a million years imagined from where I was standing last year, that my life would look completely different in just 365 short, short days. I think Steve Jobs said it best in his commencement speech at Stanford. I am paraphrasing, but the sentiment is that it is impossible to connect the dots going forward. You just have to step out on guts and faith that they
will connect, and only looking backwards can you clearly see the moments that forward you into exactly where you were supposed to be.
This was a catalyst year. A pivotal year. The year that bridges the 2 parts of my life; the Before and the After. If we are to believe Jung's archetype of the Hero, which is the very framework of almost every fiction book we ever read and modern American Cinema as we know it; than we are to believe that the second chapter doesn't begin until the hero comes into his defining moment. The one where he realizes exactly who is is, and what his purpose is to be.
So,
my plan got all messed up. It is nothing more than entertainment now, as I read through the lines of the direction I thought I was going. Instead, God made it clear that He had different plans for me. He had spent years preparing my heart for it, and it would bring me everything I had ever hoped for, and much, much more. But, He also promised, it would not be easy.
Being married to a Widower brings it own unique set of challenges. Adopting and raising a young child that I didn't bring into this earth isn't anything I could ever foreseen. There have been adjustments, challenges, and adaptations in what I like to refer to as the "Chaos Period" - the coming together of 2 sets of families, houses, schedules, rules and temperaments.
But more than anything I stand in awe of God's Grace and Love. I am grateful beyond measure that He would bring together our two families and seal them in love. I am SO excited about the possibilities of what is to come for us as a whole family in this up and coming year and in the years to come. I stand faithfully on the foundation that we are building together, and look forward to the many years that the Lord will provide us, so that we may glorify Him in all ways through our love.
James 1:2-4
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
