Reflecting on 2011

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As the end of the year calls, I turn to reflect on the year I just journeyed through.  Did I learn what I was supposed to learn?  Did I grow spiritually, physically and emotionally or did I get stuck?

The year had begun with great expectations as I entered my 50's the first part of January.  I had settled into our new way of life with a new level of contentment which allowed me to start reaching outside myself, along with my word for the year, "bloom where you are planted".  I was anxious to see the seeds I had begun to sow with my neighbors take root and hopefully blossom.  While planting seeds in getting to know and ministering to my neighbors, Benjamin and I planted seeds for a wonderful garden in our backyard.  The year was progressing very gently.

God decided to stir the pot.  In May, while looking forward to a harvest from both our backyard garden and neighbor relationships, we had the unexpected opportunity to move.  Opportunity is the word I use today...then, it was the horrible news of an unplanned move.

What was happening?  I had heard to "bloom where I was planted" and now I was to be transplanted?

Benjamin and I gently transplanted our garden into pots.  This was therapy for both him and me.  I was able to talk to him and help him adjust to our new transplanting.  We closed down his "Batman Cave" closet while making up stories of "what would the walls tell the new renters if they could talk?".  It was fun to imagine the walls telling the new children about a boy that lived in the house who had a Batman Cave in this closet.


Summer brought record heat and drought.  Our carefully transplanted garden died.  I tried to stay encouraged through this unwanted transition by decorating my new dwelling.  The next change - moving another one out of his pot - came as we heard God tell us to put our son in public school.  He would be our first child to enter public school and attend high school through graduation.


Adjustments began for all.

Our pastor began a study on Habakkuk.  I don't know if I have ever heard a complete study on all the verses of Habakkuk, but it was where I was and I soaked in every teaching.


Now I end the year still trying to transplant myself in unfamiliar territory.  A new neighborhood, two new school experiences while adjusting to changes in my adult children's lives among  my own physical changes.

I close out the year reading Kay Arthurs' Learning to Embrace Life's Disappointments: As Silver Refined.  I ask God  questions as I end the year and as I listen, I find myself in a chapter of her book where she is discussing... guess which book of the Bible?  Habakkuk.

Advent reading on hope and waiting tied up the end of the year with bows of encouragement.

As I read my post at the beginning of 2011, I see that what I thought it was going to mean and what the Lord had planned were very different...but His plans are always better.  I feel I learned a lot this year...there was tilling, weeding, planting and I believe some harvest in my life.

  Thanks for joining me on my journey this past year and for ALWAYS giving encouraging words and comments.

My verse for 2011 -  “Forget the former things; 
   do not dwell on the past. 
¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing! 
   Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? 
I am making a way in the wilderness 
   and streams in the wasteland.
I am still in the middle of Him doing a new thing...and I am continuing to learn to not dwell on the past.

My verse for 2012

He has made my feet like hind's feet, And makes me walk on my high places. Hab. 3: 19