I love the way God pulls these blog posts together! They start with something so simple ... this one with a question I asked on 17 December ... "Lord, if you were to declare a word for me over the coming year, what would it be?"
You see, I was really looking forward to 2015 considering it in my heart to be a fresh start, a new beginning ... 2013 had been a year of 'breakthrough' ... and the banner over 2014 was 'hope'. What would this new year hold for me and my family?
I pictured the numbers 2 + 0 + 1 + 5 = 8. I was certainly intrigued as I don't normally think in terms of numbers, so what did this mean? I googled 'Biblical significance of the number 8' and could hardly believe what I was reading ... there were several articles and they all agreed ... "It is the number of a new beginning". I knew the Lord had something special for me in 2015 and I wanted to be praising Him as the first day dawned!
Anyone who knows me well would agree that early rises are not my thing ... but I was up at 3.15am on 1 January ... Andrew and I made our way to Mt Coot-tha Summit Lookout ready for first light at 4.30am and sunrise at 5am.
You see, I was really looking forward to 2015 considering it in my heart to be a fresh start, a new beginning ... 2013 had been a year of 'breakthrough' ... and the banner over 2014 was 'hope'. What would this new year hold for me and my family?
I pictured the numbers 2 + 0 + 1 + 5 = 8. I was certainly intrigued as I don't normally think in terms of numbers, so what did this mean? I googled 'Biblical significance of the number 8' and could hardly believe what I was reading ... there were several articles and they all agreed ... "It is the number of a new beginning". I knew the Lord had something special for me in 2015 and I wanted to be praising Him as the first day dawned!
Anyone who knows me well would agree that early rises are not my thing ... but I was up at 3.15am on 1 January ... Andrew and I made our way to Mt Coot-tha Summit Lookout ready for first light at 4.30am and sunrise at 5am.
As I watched day break over Brisbane, there were clouds coming in from two directions to obscure my view. I was reminded of the words in Lamentations 3:22-23 ... "The faithful love of the Lord never ends. His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness, His mercies begin afresh each morning."
What had struck me was that, despite the clouds, the sun still rose regardless of whether we could see it or not and it eventually broke through. It is the same with God. Things may happen that make it difficult to see sometimes, but it doesn't change the fact that He is faithful and His mercies begin afresh each day. Some people missed the 'breakthrough' that morning because they gave up too soon.
What had struck me was that, despite the clouds, the sun still rose regardless of whether we could see it or not and it eventually broke through. It is the same with God. Things may happen that make it difficult to see sometimes, but it doesn't change the fact that He is faithful and His mercies begin afresh each day. Some people missed the 'breakthrough' that morning because they gave up too soon.
Afterwards as I sat at the Grey Gum Picnic Area, I thanked the Lord for the beautiful day. I was loving sitting there in the early morning with birds chirping, cockatoos squawking, galahs and rainbow lorikeets playing in the trees as I read Genesis 1-3 and pondered God's creation. Just beautiful!
I wrote in my journal ... "Lord, I am ready for this new beginning. I am excited and anticipating what is to come."
And so this became the subject matter for my next Faithbook layout ...
The interesting thing was that a couple of weeks ago I went away on Consultant Retreat. This is a weekend I set aside every six months to plan and prepare the Make'n'Take activities and layouts I will teach at my monthly Crop Days. I chose this design from one of our CTMH How To Programs and teamed it with some retired Ivy Lane B&T Paper and gold trimmings without any thought of what I might use it for. When I came to put my sunrise pages together, I realized this layout would be perfect.
I believe God had it all planned out ... the cloudy sunrise ... the lesson I would learn ... the gold trimmed pages ... way before I ever asked that question ... "Lord, if you were to declare a word for me over the coming year, what would it be?"