It's a New Year

Happy New Year!  I would be lying if I said I wasn't happy to see 2012 roll off the calendar.  I guess I just had so much hope that 2012 was going to be a redemption year for our family.  Unfortunately it just became an extension of the hell that was 2011.  Once again, I have great hopes and dreams for 2013.  I pray, with all my being, that this will be the year that Lucy gains health and strength, Ella gains confidence, Jack will continue to amaze us with his charisma and Erik and I will be able to spend some quality time together as husband and wife.  All that probably doesn't sound like much, but to me it would be a dream come true.

One moment at a time has been the life I have learned to live, even accept and kind of appreciate, over the past 2 years.  It hasn't been easy and it definitely has been a journey.  I miss being able to plan things like I once did and I sometimes long for those days.  In all reality though, this is the life that God wants to me live.  Putting my trust in Him to carry me through each day is how He wants me to live.  I'll be the first to admit that this life lesson has been one of the hardest parts of Lucy's illness (for me that is.)  I don't like change and I sure don't like being forced into change.

I often wonder why.  I know I've talked about it a lot, but I think recently the "why" has been weighing on me so heavy.  I don't know "why."  I may never.  When our friend Justin passed away his mother said something to me that I could not understand.  I wondered why she has chosen to think this thought.  She said "In a strange way, I'm relieved to know that Justin is in heaven.  What if his life here on earth was going to be worse than it was."  I had just spent a year thinking that life couldn't get any worse.  Could it?

I recently started reading "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp.  There is one passage that burned a hole in my soul from the moment I read it and I can't seem to get it off my mind.  She says in a conversation with her brother in law, "maybe you don't want to change the story, because you don't know what a different ending holds."  Learning to accept and even one day learning to be thankful for our story seems like a monumental task.  But what it?  What if MY story, the story that I wanted to write, had a worse ending.  I shutter at the thought.

Oh dear God, heal my broken soul and forgive me failure to trust you.

At the end of every day my every need has been met-one way of the other.  All without and preparation or planning on my part.  God has continued to amaze me, and I expect nothing less in 2013.  I'm not setting any goals or resolutions for this new year.  There is no need to set myself up for disappointment.  Instead, I'm going to strive to continue to live each and every day to its absolute fullest, one day at a time.  Striving to find the God moments in every situation.

So, here's to 2013...one day at a time.