Monday, December 28, 2009

Oh God, you are so funny.

Oh my, I have been gone quite awhile. Quite unlike me as I am usually such a chatterbox. This has been such an eventful holiday season for me and I have just truly been too scattered about to blog or visit anybody else's blogs. I do want to say thank you to all of you for the Birthday well wishes. Thank you so much and thank you for the laughs. I am feeling much better although not skinnier lol.

We had such a blessed Christmas day, I hope all of you did too. It was just so much fun and relaxing. Mike did a deep fried turkey this year and boy was it fantastic! We cooked a 20lb bird in an hour and a half and it was moist and AWESOME!! I shall never bake a turkey again. The entire day was bliss.

I wanted to take a moment to pause and look at this year. I don't normally do that but 2008 was a major life changing year for me and when I look at 2008 which is mostly blogged about here it is incredible what God did in my life. I mean, it was AMAZING. I have spent my entire life slowly evolving into who I am but in 2008 God took me into warp speed and did a transformation in such a short time that it still blows my mind. He taught me so many things in that year that I would ask him over and over why so fast? As soon as he would teach me something He had me onto something else so quickly it was hard to keep it all straight sometimes. Maybe that was why God told me to blog? Having a written record is nice like that.

What was 2009 all about? Something beautiful...... 2009 was all about stepping into the will of God. Can I tell you what a relief it is to know what God's will is for a person? Decades of not knowing my calling or purpose and God so fantastically revealed it to me in 2009 and I so gladly stepped into it. 2008 was all about teaching me what it truly means to trust in the Lord with all my heart, learning that my character was of the utmost importance to God (walk before me and be blameless), most valueably learning to walk by faith and not by sight & knowing who I am in Christ, learning that being in the will of God is just as much about who we are on the inside as what we will "do" physically and that the closer I come to reflecting the character of Jesus the closer I come to knowing my true calling and purpose and that I need to seek the Lord with my whole heart each and every day and not ignore Him or put Him on the back burner and listen for His promptings.

2009 was about putting into practice what I had learned in 2008. It was time to put up or shut up and I liked that. I like tangible things that I can see or touch. 2009 was a year of living proof that God's word does not lie. I sought His will and His heart like never before and God laid out before me what I needed to do and together we did them. I don't do everything right, I never will but I do the best I can and I try that is for sure. Together, for the first time in my life I can say I didn't live my life as me, I lived it together with God & Jesus in me. I did what He showed me with His help and yes, everything His word said came to pass. His word did not lie. I sought out every single scripture that pointed the way to knowing God's will for our lives which I have laid out in a six part study on the sidebar and put them into practice in my life. I teach now, I NEVER thought I would teach Bible study but I do. That was all God & I love it so much. I get so much pleasure from our ladies Bible studies. I share what I have been given and it is so much fun!! I love it. I was terrified before our first lesson, does anybody remember that? I was so scared that I would not be able to even speak as I totally BOMBED as a speaker at Church that very first time to announce before the Church what our first lesson would be about and all the details such as what days and times we would meet. My voice quivered and shook and my hands were visibly shaking, it was soooooo embarrassing! But lots of you gave me wonderful advice, I really liked what Luther said too. It was a great help to me, thanks Luther!! But that is just it, on my own I was a flop. I was terrified and completely inadequate to speak simple words much less teach. It was staying in His word, praying to speak it boldly as though it were the very words of God coming out of my mouth and asking for His strength that allows me to teach that class. I knew the fact that I was even going to teach that class was His doing 'cause I sure don't ever seek out to be the center of attention of anything ha ha. I sought His will for me and He put me right into it. All I had to do was trust him and obey, sounds easy but whew, it sure can be hard to do something new and scary if I try to do it on my own.

Yes, 2009 was a year of tangible results from doing everything in the six part study on How To Discover God's Will for Our Lives. Want to hear something funny? Okay thanks 'cause I wanted to tell you this funny thing or maybe I have already? I forget. In the study I talk about the F word, Forgiveness. I talked about how God asked me to pray for every single person I could think of that had ever hurt me and that I was to pray blessings over them and good only, no bad. I was not to pray to fix them 'cause I got some conviction when I tried that ha ha, no I was to pray for blessings in their lives and for good things for them only. Well, in 2008 I prayed for my ex husband to find happiness and for God to give him a wonderful godly wife that would be a joy and a blessing to him. That wasn't easy at first 'cause honestly, I don't like him at all. I find him repulsive and abusive but I did pray that for him and I meant it after awhile. Soon any bitter feelings I had for him were gone 'cause it is hard to dislike someone you are praying great things over right? Well, part of that whole thing with God telling me to do all that was Him also telling me that He was going to grant these blessings to these people. I kind of forgot about that part until a couple of months ago.

Guess who got married this summer? Yep, my ex husband married a lady who as far as I can see is wonderful and nice and he is completely undeserving of her ha ha. She is GREAT. I kept telling Lexie to tell her to run when Lexie went down for the wedding, I was kidding of course and Lexie knew it but I honestly did feel sorry for this poor woman. Every now and then before and after the wedding when Lexie would bring up this woman I would feel so sorry for her and know that my ex did not deserve someone this wonderful and I was thinking about it one day when I wrote her to tell her how happy I was that Lexie had her for a step mom and such. Suddenly God just convicted me BIG TIME. He let me know that I had prayed for this woman to come into his life and God had done just as I asked Him to do. Here was a tangible result from all those prayers and I never saw it and was blind to the fact that God had answered that prayer just like I asked Him to. He gave that man every single thing I prayed for him in a wife. It was a powerful moment when I was mentally thinking how great she was that he did not deserve her and that if she was smart she would run hard and fast ha ha and God was like "HELLO? remember what you prayed, I told you I would do it and now that I have you don't even see it and you have the nerve to complain about it and think it should be changed?" Well, I just laughed about it and thought that was the funniest thing EVER. Be careful what you pray for ha ha.

Jenn

5 comments:

Andrea said...

"Be careful what you pray for"..my hubby reminds me of this from time to time. It is a little funny...I am laughing with you. I have an X that would not deserve this woman, either. I will get off that subject before GOD starts convicting me for opening my mouth.
We missed you.
Blessings, andrea

Wendy Blight said...

Happy Belated Birthday!!

Isn't it so cool that the year you turned 40 is the year God invited you to put all that He has taught and gifted you into practice. Life will be richer and more fulfilling as you grow in this purpose and calling. As you serve Him and allow Him to work in and through you, your life will be so full and complete! I am excited to hear how He uses you this year.

Thank you for stopping by my blog and for praying for Lauren and our family! The prayers are what kept us going when we felt we could go no more!

Praying you have a blessed and joyous new year,

Wendy

Danielle said...

I can't wait to see what God does in 2010 for you!

Heart2Heart said...

Jenn,

I love how you can look back on the things you prayed for and see that they did come to pass although not exactly as you would have liked them to be.

I know just before this illness of mine, I prayed for God to help me lose some weight although this did come to pass it was not the way I had intended.

Loved this post! Some really great insights from 2009 from you and thank you so much for all your wonderful comments to me personally. I am truly blessed to have you in my life as a great part of my family.

Love and Hugs ~ Kat

Tasha Simons said...

I enjoyed reading your reflections on the past 2 years. How cool that you prayed for your x-husband's wife and God answered that prayer! So glad that he changed you in the process as you were truly able to extend forgiveness.

Love,

Tasha