2013 – More to Be!

Nothing says “Happy New Year!” like cleaning out my room and diving in to years of memories! A chore that shouldn’t have taken me more than an hour ended up taking me the better part of the day…and part of the evening as well. Today, on this first day of 2013, I again walked through the years that have led me to where I am.

I got to watch myself grow up through years of journal entries and pictures and letters – all of which acting as triggers releasing a flood of memories. Memories allow us to re-live where we’ve been. Some of those things made me smile, and others made me laugh. And still yet, there were some that brought a tug of sorrow to my heart; circumstances and things that have happened that I may never understand fully, and that even now I wish had not come to pass, but have taught me something today.

Upon looking back to those times, I realize that the sorrow in the loss of those things is proof that there was a love in it all. It is a loss because it was loved. I am thankful for all those things that have been loved and lost because they show just how precious each day is. Treasure the people in your life, you never know how long they will be there. When things are good, thank God. When circumstances become hard, thank God that this too will pass and for the beauty that He will graciously bring out of it.

2012 was an incredible year of growth filled with adventures and little blessings. In 2013, I see more to be. My personal challenge is to live each day embracing fully what God has given in it.

“This is the day that the Lord has made, let us  rejoice and be glad in it.”  Psalm 118:24 

What are some of your favorite memories and how do they impact your life today? In what way will you challenge yourself each day this year?

Content, yet Hopeful… Guest Post by Meghan Gorecki

Today we have a most beautiful and inspiring guest post by Meghan Gorecki, who is a dear old friend of mine! !

Meghan is a young woman striving to live a simple life under the Lord’s unique direction, & daily learning that “to live is Christ, but to die is gain.” Her days are filled to overflowing with working full-time as a medical receptionist, her crazy-awesome family, & pursuing her “dream job” of becoming a published fiction author. Though her passion is fiction writing, she records the crazy days, love, tough lessons, & laughter that color her days on her blog, Just As I Am.

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Always being a hopeless/now-cynical romantic, news of engagements, weddings or “relationship statuses” changing always bring a sappy smile to my face. Hearing of unique, divinely-penned love stories always bring me goosebumps and I just shake my head in wonderment of God’s perfect plan for each and every one of us. *Laughs* And at the same time I can say with utmost honesty that I am quite content in my “single” status! This *doesn’t* mean I don’t look around on occasion and wonder where “my guy” is…but I digress.

As my friends and I are getting older, talks of crushes or “boys” have progressed to serious discussions about what we look for {and what we don’t want} in future husbands…while still other friends are hopeful about future relationships, or *in* serious relationships! One of my friends is expecting her thirdchild–her love story is a *very* special and unique one I am privileged to have witnessed. As much as my deepest heart’s desire is to get married and have as many children as God’s will’s…I am, frankly, blown away by the fact that I don’t “feel” like me & my friends are “old enough” to be actually going through or developing serious relationships that may just turn into marriage!

Time has flown by at an alarming rate…it feels like only yesterday a friend and I were perusing Before You Meet Prince Charming, denouncing “crushes” and romance novels…and nobly making “lists” of the “musts” for our future spouses. *Disclaimer: the book referenced is a great book, helpful, to a point. Just slightly went to the extreme…crushes, I have NO room to talk, only had one till I was 12…and I love a good cheesy historical book!* At that time, I was *so* swept up in all of that, it proved to be a slight stumbling block…in other reminisces, I remember vividly how I *SO* wanted to be married at eighteen and having a passel of children by my mid-twenties. Oh the daydreams of an overly romantic old-fashioned little girl…

I rejoice with those who rejoice in new-found, or progressing, relationships…yet it is ALL still so foreign to me half the time I don’t know what to think exactly. But I do know this–I can listen, rejoice with them, and pray for them in the new season. It’s a privilege at every step of the way…while it is *also* a privilege to pray for my utterly single friends’ future husbands, and pray with them in this season where God is preparing us, and “our guys” for our lives together.

I have a journal under a light layer of dust that has a few “letters” to my future husband recorded…I think about him, and where he is, what he’s doing, quite often. And on occasion I do ponder who he could be. I do have a “list” of qualities I hope my husband to have, but it is *not* extensive–compared to certain “lists” two of my friends and I compiled at a young age that boasted forty or more “requirements” for our guys. Don’t judge. Those days of day-dreaming childhood are gone, while the more serious business of asking the Lord to prepare and shape *me* are uppermost in my mind…but I do “dabble” on Pinterest with my dream wedding. smile Regardless of when, where or how gorgeous the wedding is…no matter how many times I may be a bridesmaid before a bride, I am thankful and content where I am now. Yet I am so hopeful for someday… beginning a new life with a beautiful wedding day, & carving out that new life with God at the center.

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How has this post encouraged you? Please feel free to share in the comments. Blessings!

~Brittany