Immeasurably More!

Hard year. Yes, that... it truly has been that.

In big and small ways. In expected and unexpected ways. In joy-filled and profoundly sad ways. 

In ways immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine...

Yet, in all of these different ways, one thing remained sure and certain in this hard year... and that is God showing up in ways immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine!

In hindsight, I shouldn't have been surprised? After all, the One Word that God impressed upon my heart to focus on this year is: Brave.

When you are brave, you give yourself the gift of facing and touching the torn places. The places where we're torn to pieces can be thin places where we touch the peace of God." ~ Ann Voskamp, The Greatest Gift.

And all year, this has been my anthem: "You make me brave. You call me out beyond the shore into the waves. No fear can hinder now the promises You've made." 

Through tears, both happy and sad ones, I've sung those words countless times.

And this is what I've come to realized: Through each hard thing, God's gifted us with this wild joy that surpasses all understanding.     

And the realization that these words are truer than ever before:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. ~ 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.

And with these realizations came the tenacity and resolve to keep doing the hard things — the important things, the things that stand for Hope:

Because when we’re unbending in what is important — endings aren’t the thing that is important.

Because if we don’t always fiercely stand for Hope, regardless of risk, cost, or ending — we steal all future Hope.

Because if Hope isn’t worth it, no matter how it turns out — then it turns out, that nothing is actually worth it.

Because when we say that one life has worth — we’re saying that all lives have worth.

And a life that believes in the worth of all lives — is the only kind of life that’s really worth living.

~ Ann Voskamp, from this must-read blog post.

As we celebrate Christmas, it truly is with deep gratitude that I write this blog post and share our family's year-end newsletter which lists our Top Ten news and hightlights.

To read our family's year-end newsletter, please click here.

As we look to 2017, the words from Ephesians 3:14-21 form my prayer, not only for our family, but for all of you as well:

It is for this reason that I bow my knees before the Father, after whom all families in heaven above and on earth below receive their names, and pray:

Father, out of Your honorable and glorious riches, strengthen Your people. Fill their souls with the power of Your Spirit so that through faith the Anointed One will reside in their hearts. May love be the rich soil where their lives take root. May it be the bedrock where their lives are founded so that together with all of Your people they will have the power to understand that the love of the Anointed is infinitely long, wide, high, and deep, surpassing everything anyone previously experienced. God, may Your fullness flood through their entire beings.

Now to the God who can do so many awe-inspiring things, immeasurable things, things greater than we ever could ask or imagine through the power at work in us, to Him be all glory in the church and in Jesus the Anointed from this generation to the next, forever and ever. Amen.

From our family to yours, 

Merry Christmas & a joy-filled New Year!