2014: New Year, New Word.

In 2012 I had a word: Discipleship.
In 2013 I had a word: Thankfulness.

In both years God grew me in these places. Did He grow me in other places?  absolutely -100%  But when I took time to notice him growing me in these particular areas in the last year it was amazing.

This year was a big year for us.  We grew a lot. We questioned a ton. We learned about the church and about God. We grew together. My husband got a new car, I graduated PA school, passed my boards and started my first job. We traveled together to New Hampshire, Delaware, Washington DC, Baltimore, MD, Tampa, St. Augustine and I went to Texas to help my best friend move and get situated. We moved into a house. We bought a washer/dryer and we have a big table to gather family and friends around. We learned to budget better. We completed Dave Ramsey and are running like gazelles. We loved each other more. We grew closer to friends. We studied the bible harder. We were blessed with a year of no skin cancer for me and a year of good health for Paul. We changed our diet cutting out GMO foods slowly but surely as much as we can. We were blessed enough to give more in 2013 than ever before. We trusted God with more and more and He blessed us more and more. I am excited and prayerful for 2014. Excited to see what God has planned. Excited to grow and learn and see what is in store for our family. I'm sure 2014 will have trials as did 2013, but I know that God has a plan and I have my husband by my side.

For me specifically this year not only blessed me with accomplishments and paychecks but I learned a lot. Specifically I learned to be thankful. I wish I could you I have mastered thankfulness: but what I've mastered is learning how often I'm not thankful. I have learned more about what the bible says about thankfulness and I have learned to make a habit of being thankful that is greatly improved form previous years.

In the last day of 2013 I was challenged. My work had applied for a specific type of loan repayment program that would really help us financially. It's something we prayed about a lot asking God to provide. Yesterday I found out the office was declined. We did not get loan repayment. In that moment was I thankful: No. I was sad. I trust God has a plan. God is helping me to see that plan, helping me to trust Him. And as I sit and ponder and pray about what word God wants to grow me in this year I'm met with so many words that mostly could be summed up in the following:

the fruits of the spirit : love joy peace patience kindness goodness gentleness faithfulness and self control.

I could be more loving. God is love and that is what He asks of us.
I could be more joyful (I learned that in my year of thanks) having my thankfulness overflow into joy.
I could use peace that surpasses all understanding.
I could definitely use more patience.
I could grow in kindness.
I could have more goodness flow out of me and learn more about God's goodness
I could be more gentle, and compassionate.
I could be more faithful, trust that God is faithful and trust Him.
I could have more self control and give more control to God.

so I asked my husband  and he suggested love because you can become more joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, general faithful and controlled. The greatest of these is Love. A word that as I had prayed about this so far had come up often.

So there we have it folks. Love.

Happy 2014.
What's your word of the year? What word are you seeking that God can teach you about in 2014. Friends know that even though I focused on 1 word, God used that word to grow me in so many other words and it helped make me more aware. It's not limiting God to one word but opening my heart to see how that 1 word God uses in so many ways.

<3

God did not make death

I apologize friends that I did not continue blogging each day of advent. As some of you may know if you follow me on twitter or read my last couple of posts:  my grandmother passed away on December 19th. To say the news saddened me is an understatement. When my mom died back in 2008 I was sad, but my grandmother: my mamaw passing broke my heart. The last time I saw mamaw was August 23rd of this year. I was near where she lived for my graduation from PA school and I was told that her caretakers were out of town and she was staying in the hospice unit of the hospital. As I wrote before: her illness was not physical as much as mental. She had alzheimer's disease that had progressed and she couldn't be left alone. The time was a blessing. I got to talk with her, got to hear her ask me not to "play with her memory" and I even got to comfort her and feed her. I knew it was the last time I was going to see her and she was kind enough to bless me with this picture:

While I will cherish this picture. This is not my mamaw. She looks frail and small in this photo. I look like a giant leaning over her bed. The most recent good picture I have of mamaw is from 2004:

This is how I remember her. She also kept here hair nice, and wore bright color clothing. 

Her hair has been white as long as I have known her. 

Her smile here looks half hearted but I know that it is real from the look in her eyes. 

In the last 10 days those close to me have offered kind words:

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"She's in a better place" 

"let me know if you need anything."

"praying for you."

and the kindness that these words represent has been amazing.

Something we must remember friends is seen in Wisdom 1:13 "Because God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in destruction of the living." It goes on to tell us in verse 16 : "It was the wicked who with hands and words invited death, considered it a friend, and pined for it, and made a covenant with it..." Friends: God creates life not death. So why is there death? Death is a consequence of sin. Not one persons sin in particular but rather is a consequence of sin. Again wisdom teaches us about this 

wisdom 2:23-24 "For God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him. But by the envy of the devil death entered the world, and they who are in his possession experience it. "

The apostle Paul writes of this in Romans 5:12-14 "Therefore, just as through one person sin entered the world and through sin, death and thus death came to all inasmuch as all sinned- for up to the time of the law sin was in the world though sin is not accounted when there is no law. But death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those who did not sin after the pattern of the trespass of Adam who is the type of the one who is to come." 

So how terrible: because of Adam and Eve and their sin death entered the world and satan is over death. However we know Christ has conquered satan, sin and death! What a wonderful blessing!! However we live in a world that believes "death is the norm." "its natural" It's not. It's a product of sin and and only Christ has overcome death with His resurrection.

So as christians what is our response to death then? 

prayer. I pray for mamaw that God would have grace on her and grant her eternal life with Him. I know that this is His choice, and He is perfectly just so whatever He chooses is right. I'd encourage you friends when you have lost someone to pray that God would have mercy on them for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 

friends I ask you to please pray for my grandmother that God would accept her into eternity. Pray for those she left behind that they would be faithful to God in the lives that they would run the race well and live lives that glorify the one true God. Friends I pray that for you that you would live a life worthy of your calling and that God would one day welcome you into eternity. 

<3

His Concern for me brings me to worship

Friends in this advent season I am learning so much about the need for God. This is something I know in my mind but something that has regrown in my heart in this season.  And this need for Him has overflowed in this season not only because I am focusing more on Christ in this season, but also because in seasons of difficulty you are aware more and more of your inadequacy and need for help.

-My job while I love it at times is very challenging. Every day is a learning experience and every day I need Christ to help me through. My patients can be a challenge.
-Being a wife is a job and I am always learning new things about my husband, new things about my role as his wife and new ways I need to grow. It's a blessing but it takes work and in that work I need Christ to help me be patient and kind and respectful and loving and submissive.
- Finances have been a challenge for us in that I have quite a bit of student loan debt. Between that and the bills we need to pay it is a challenge and I pray each day God will provide for us. He hasn't let me down but in this season it's been something on my heart and mind as the first payments of my student loans are due next month. It's a scary reality that we will be living for the next several years and we are praying that God will help us with this.
- I want a baby. Truly there is nothing that sounds better than holding a little one in my arms that God helped my husband and I make. I'm excited to grow our family. But I have to trust God each day in that now is not the best timing for because of the aforementioned jobs, finances, and time I need Christ to comfort me and help me to wait and be patient in this time and to protect my heart for the task of trying to conceive and the trials that can come with that. It's a while off for us, no babies in the near future unless God wills them.
-friendships are a challenge in some ways. both a blessing and a challenge. As God has been growing me and changing me it does affect my relationships and in that it's a challenge. It's also a challenge that we moved about 35 minutes away putting me further away from my close friends and that has been a struggle. A struggle to adjust to the inability to just run down the stairs to see a friend, and a struggle to not be able to meet in the middle as easily. While we do have friends where we are now there is a challenge.

Even in all that I know the Lord knows my troubles. In
Exodus 4:31 "The people believed when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their affliction, they bowed down in worship."
Friends the Israelites bowed to the Lord for He knew them and not only did He know them, he was concerned for them. I know God is concerned for me. I know that Christ cries and prays for me in heaven. I know the Holy Spirit translates my tears and I know God has a vat of my tears He is saving. His word tells me these things. I know my name is written on His hand and that He cares for me. I know He will never leave me or forsake me. And that my friends is true for you too. That truth brings me to my knees, and softens my heart. That love brings me to repentance. His kindness blows me away.

Friends let the kindness and the concern of the Lord draw you to bow down in worship. Let knowing that the God of the universe loves you rock your world.

<3

footprints and mountain climbers

I feel like so much has happened so I need to do a quick update.

I've graduated: I am a Physician Assistant with a Masters in Medical Sciences.
We applied to rent a house.
I found a job that I'm just finalizing papers with.
...did I mention I graduated?

while that only takes up a few lines. its several years in the making. I've been in school my whole life and towards the end of high school I decided I wanted to be a PA. I had a lot of people tell me:
-you should be a doctor instead- no thanks.
-you won't get in without working as a nurse/emt/other healthcare professional (they were wrong)
-you should get your phD instead- no thanks.
-you won't like living 3 hours away from home- they were wrong...


and now here I am in a hotel in Texas as my best friend has her first day of work as an engineer and I'm stricken with the fact that I'm done. I think its the first time thats really sunken even though graduation was like 5 days ago.

and I have to say. I couldnt' have done it alone. I couldn't have done it without the strong support of my husband and the overwhelming abundance of blessings and provision from God. The first really is part of the latter.

Honestly- from giving me a seat in the program....to helping me get through the 2.5 years with many surgeries for skin issues...and many recoveries...and many moments where I felt like I couldn't do it...God got me through. You know that story with the footprints in the sand and at the end it's like "when you see one set of footprints it was then I carried you?" ...
God didn't just carry me: At times I feel like He dragged me kicking and screaming and at other times I feel like He carried my hopeless self the next couple steps and threw me in the water with a loving sentiment of "sinking isn't an option you better swim." And I did with His help: I just kept swimming. And in the middle of the program He threw me a curveball: an amazing husband. And I am so thankful for Paul and the blessing he has been in my life.

I don't know if you watched the Price is Right ever...but when I was a kid (and maybe still) there was a mountain man on there.

source

This little mountain man you watched on the show as he climbed up this giant mountain as part of a game. A person is shown several small prizes and is asked to guess the retail amount. There are 25 steps to the mountain and the climber goes up 1 step for ever dollar the guess is off. If the climber falls over before the person guesses correctly the prices then the contestant looses the game. While I wouldnt' say the game it self really correlates with my experience the idea of this mountain, and this little yodeling mountain man slowly climbing up is very accurate. And now I'm at the top of one very big mountain I've been climbing and yet at the bottom of the mountain of my career. It's an interesting place to be and one that leaves me both amazed at how far of come and a little unsure of if I know enough to climb the next mountain. I have my PANCE exam in 16 days and so I have a lot of studying to do. 

In summary: I am so thankful for the accomplishments that I have reached, but I definitely wouldn't be here without the God. I am so thankful to Him for His unfailing love of me and help with pursuit of such an amazing goal that He put on my heart so long ago. He worked all things together and in that process I learned so much more about Him and about love. So excited to see what He has planned next. 

Be praying for me friends and let me know how I can pray for you. 

Love,

Anita

one of the newest Physician Assistants :)