It’s funny how sometimes one little thing changes us, and we don’t notice until we have the courage to look up or look around. At the end of 2017, as I chose a word for the year, I kept hearing, “forward.” Now twelve months later, I’m reminded of it. “Forward” is not the word I chose for 2018 but “steadfast.” I wanted to move forward in the work of 2017 and stay steadfast.
That is not, however, what I did. I would not say that 2018 was a year in which I was faithful to steadfastness. 2018 was not a bad year though the last quarter was a hard one. Most of all, the Lord was steady in His faithfulness to me.
At the beginning of the year, I was chosen to be a part of someone else’s ministry team. I would not want to say anything negative about my experience, except that it caused my forward momentum to slow which caused me mixed feelings as I tried to evaluate what the Lord was teaching me.
Yet, I know that the Lord opened the door and I believe that in moving forward the Lord wanted me to get a little stuck, kinda like how the Israelites took that path through the wilderness that ended up taking 40 years.
That assignment had moments of busyness in which all my extra time was focused on it and some moments of doing very little. Yet, I allowed it to cause me to lose focus, which is why I have nothing negative to say about the program itself. I lost my own focus.
At the end of the year, I found things stacked up in areas all over the house. I had stopped noticing the piles because they became normal and even acceptable to me. I allowed myself to do the work of someone else and not the work God had given me to do and made peace with the consequences.
Then I went to Africa on a mission trip. After, I came home and finished the work of my Bible study to prepare to lead it online. Also, I was part of a pilot discipleship group during the last quarter of the year, which was a gift to me.
Now, here’s where things get a little wonky because I believe God did call me to set aside my stuff for someone else’s. And so at the end, I had to decide whether God was calling me to be a support for someone else’s ministry in a permanent way or continue with my own. I don’t know that I have the answer to that exactly. But I believe we each have a ministry and we need to say yes to the things that are within the calling and gifts He’s given each of us. I believe I am probably healthiest when I am saying no more than yes, which sounds so cringy and stingy but allows me to give a good yes.
At the close of this year, I’ve had a lot of personal hardship, from worrying about my health to my teenage daughter to family dynamics and more. These hardships started when my online study started, and I associated that with spiritual warfare. I am in general very proud of the work I did writing that study. But studying it online with a broader group of women helped me to understand that it may be deeper than most women want. I don’t know that I will achieve the things I want to achieve, some level of success in ministry, book writing, going back to school, etc.
You would think that personal hardship would stall me, but I’ve looked around and have begun to tackle the piles that I can now see. It has spurred me onto new work which I feel the Lord is calling me to do, with more nos in areas like social media and things that eat my time and more yeses to things like d-group which focus me in the ways I should go.
The one question I often have is if things are so difficult in my family life should I focus all my energy there instead of anywhere else? And I keep coming back to yes and no. I feel like I need to embrace the hard things as they come and set the other things to the side (more piles in spiritual ways) and address things in the cracks of my time.
As for my word of 2019, I haven’t quite nailed it down yet. My daughter’s piano teacher speaking of piano said that this is a year of transition for us, and something about that felt like it was so true going into 2019. Instead of moving forward, I will be turning. I will be transitioning. I don’t know if the word will be “courage” or “renew” or “hope” or even “turn,” or “look.”
What I do know is that my efforts toward writing will change. It is likely that I will end my blog jamiesampieriharper.com and will write a regular newsletter of encouragement as well as write things on curiouspursuitofchrist.com, but that’s all just ideas for now.
How was your 2018? What is carrying you forward in 2019? What do you want to do more of? What do you want to do less of?
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