2018: Can a Really Hard Year Be Filled with Blessings?
As we reach the end of the year and reflect on all of the HUGE things that happened here at the Point, I am amazed at what God did. He unexpectedly remodeled our house, married off another daughter, added a new granddaughter to the family and grew my Young Living business. I started 2018 with my personal goals and He must have laughed and thought something like, “OK little girl….you just plan your adorable plans. I have something much better even though you would never have chosen it for yourself.”
No, I would certainly NOT have chosen for my house to catch fire! I wouldn’t have been living like a permanent camper while workmen buzzed around my burned house. And I don’t have any control over what my grown kids do, so all the weddings and babies come and boom! New people in our life and more for Mom to do. And I don’t even really know how to grow a business….I’m just a girl who loves to use the plants God gave us to work naturally with our bodies. God does the rest!
But here’s the amazing thing that God knew and I didn’t….every one of those things is better than what I would have planned for myself. I could make a list a mile long of the blessings that came from the fire. My favorite might just be that all of our popcorn ceilings got scraped off. I know it’s silly….but I just hated those bumpy ceilings and all the dust that gathered up there. But now they are GONE and no one cried over that loss (except maybe the guy who had to scrape them). And we purged…I mean PURGED! When everything you own is removed from your house it’s the perfect time to decide what to keep and what to let go. I let go of at least 75% of what we owned. We just didn’t need it! Yes….even books. (ducking from the backlash of all my homeschool book loving friends). If you came to my house right now you would still think there are a lot of books, but nothing compared to the library of Congress I used to have. And guess what….we haven’t missed any of them!
As I type this I can look to my left and see our whole shelf of children’s books that I am keeping for the grands. See? I’m still a book hoarder!
Other blessings from this past year are OBVIOUSLY our new granddaughter and son-in-law. How cool is it that we have TWO new family members?! But I will say that I miss my newly married daughter so much that I sometimes have to do a little speech to myself in my head. “This is good. She is happy. This is how it’s supposed to be.” And I take a deep breath and smell some Joy oil and move on from the sadness.
Speaking of oils, that’s been another layer of blessing from this past year. God keeps growing this unexpected business and I am constantly amazed at how He uses my heart’s desire to help my friends learn to be abundantly healthy using natural products (and not the horrible toxic junk that is everywhere!) and He leads me through this beautiful business. I hate to admit that I really don’t know how to run a business. I don’t want you to think I’m over here in my fancy CEO conference room chair making Power Points with pie charts on them (isn’t that basically what a CEO does?). No, it’s more like me lying in bed in the morning when I should be up already making breakfast and praying for y’all and asking God, “What next, sir?” And letting Him guide me. As my team grows I grow personally too….and it all draws me closer to the One Who leads the way.
Isn’t God amazing?!
He took what was a really difficult year and molded it into something good? I mean, the Bible says He does that, but it’s not always as easy to see as smooth ceilings and new granddaughters.
This month we are taking a family trip to Orlando. The boys lost all of their Disney and Universal souvenirs in the fire, so we decided to make this trip a Christmas gift/fire recovery celebration for all of us. We will do roller coasters and eat Mickey Bars and build memories to put 2018 in the books as a really weird year that was filled with blessings!
It all depends on what glasses you decide to put on every day. Will you wear the glasses that show you every little thing that goes wrong, every person who hurts you, every driver who cuts you off, every mess your kids make? Or will you put on the glasses of seeing the good things all around, seeing the pain in those hearts that wound others, realizing other drivers have their own burdens to bear and noticing every sweet thing your kids do? It really is a choice, even though we don’t always feel like it. Our feelings aren’t a reflection of truth; God’s Word is where that is found!
I hope you’ll join me on this journey of choosing to wear the joy-filled glasses. Using my oils has really helped me with that! When I feel the old, sour attitude creep up I open a bottle of Joy or StressAway or Gratitude and put a couple of drops over my heart or on my wrists and smell them deeply….letting the joy of the Lord sink in. It’s really helpful to do this while saying Bible verses, so make sure you’ve got them memorized AND hanging around your house! We can do this together! In fact….when you order the Kit with me I will send you one of my favorite verses to put on your mirror so you can see it every morning when you use your oils!
We need to encourage each other and lift one another UP! Get your Premium Starter Kit and let’s team up on this crazy journey!
Put on those gratitude glasses right now and look around! Even the hardest trials have goodness in them.