So I'm sitting here waiting for the water heat up for a cup of hot chocolate, listening to the rain outside and thinking about how cold it is out there and how bad it's going to suck to have to get ice off of windows in the morning. I'm thinking about what I want to write that isn't just a stream of consciousness. By the time I finish writing this and it is read we will be 7 days into 2010. That's crazy man.
I want to take a few minutes and reflect back on the decade that has passed by. Here is what the first decade the 2000s looked like for me: I have been employed at 5 churches, and one scaffolding yard. I have had three children come into my life. I have been "let go" from one of the churches. I have had to move back in with my parents along with my wife and three small children. I have moved from West to East Texas. I have gained two sisters-in-law. I have officiated my brother's wedding and presided over a funeral (both firsts). I have developed a new taste and appreciation for coffee. I have had my life touched by the students and parents and members of the various churches where I have served. I graduated from college. I moved through my twenties and into my thirties. I got three tattoos.
Now obviously these are in no particular order. I was simply reflecting back on the major events of my life in the last decade. Allow me to say this about these things though. In all of this, no matter what part it was, I can look back and see the evidence of where God has been at work. No matter what happened to us as a family in the last 10 years God has remained faithful to his plan for us. He has known all along what that is, and he has not strayed from it. Pretty sure I can't say the same about me, but then again I'm not God.
The darkest days of my life so far that I can recall are listed right in the middle of that decade list. I moved from a place that we loved to a place we came to more or less despise. For nearly a year and a half Roni and I were unhappy with where we were. We thought we were following God's desire, after all everything seemed to have fallen into place just right. And yet it was the hardest year of our married life-personally, professionally, emotionally and spiritually. In the end it was decided that it was probably best for me to move on. I found this out about a week and a half after Christmas. I had a daughter in kindergarten, a two year old and a two month old. Just over two months before I lost my grandfather. To help complicate matters further, there were no jobs it seemed there where we were living. Our only real choice was to pack everything into storage, load up our clothes and our kids and move in with my parents. It was a dark time believe me. At 32 and the father of three small children you don't want to be forced to move back in with your parents.
In all of that however, I could see the hand of God. He took us out of a place and situation that was destroying us financially as well as in other ways. He placed us in a situation where we could heal and recover from some of those wounds for a bit. He then placed us in the place we are now. No matter what the situation seemed to be at that point in time, God had his hand on us.
God is always moving forward. I don't see God as being one who looks back at what was but rather as one who looks ahead to what is to come. And no matter what it is that happens to me and my family in this next decade, I know that God is still looking out for us. God promised that He will never leave us or forsake us, and I know that God has stuck by that promise in my life.
Peace and Love y'all.
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