Happy New Year!

2011 was a strange year.

We traveled more than we have in previous years, yet the year went by so fast it seems easy to forget all the fun places we went. Such as Topeka, Atchison, Thayer, Mammoth Springs, Hardy, and for me, a trip to St. Charles and St. Louis.

It was the third year in a trio that was hard to get through, however fast it went. Many things changed, mostly me.

The last few months brought about relief on several levels as things within me changed to bring me back to the person I have always been that got buried under the cynical and untrusting person I became. I won't say that I trust people any easier but I have learned to trust God more.

Somewhere around October I decided this is the life God has given me, I should be so in love with Him that I wake up and embrace every day as a gift from someone who loves me. Yeah, it's not the same life that someone else gets, but this is what God wants for me and I am to be a good steward with it because I LOVE Him.

On December 30, 2011 as I thought about the year to come, it was not with the usual dread I face. I realized that I was excited for the new year and a chance to do new things and yes, make a few changes. I had a gut feeling (I'm an intuitive and I get those gut feelings) that it was going to be a good year. And that is when my word came to me. I have hugged it to my chest for a couple days and now I am going to share with you the word God gave me for 2012.

HOPE.

And my verse is one that Jim Peterson gave me in St. Louis after praying for me late one night in the prayer room-and I cried in front of him, not many people can say they've seen me cry. (He is such a wonderful man of God.)

The verse was Romans 8:31 ...If God is for us who can be against us?

Not only that I am claiming a whole chunk of Romans 8 as my verse this year:

²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who^[i] have been called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. ³⁰ And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

³¹ What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ³³ Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶ As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”^[j]

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is taken from Biblegateway.com NIV version.

I have many things I want to accomplish this year, just as always. I have always loved the feeling of a clean slate. I know I will mess up occassionally, but I am focused on living for God, doing everything as if doing unto the Lord not unto man.

And I feel so much peace, joy, and hope for the year that were absent in other years. And all that these last three hard years have taught me, I will use as I dive into 2012.

Now, to tackle time management. :D