How is that New Year word coming along?

Hello my friends!

I am back after a long hiatus.  As you may remember, I wrote about having a having a specific word from God to focus on in the new year, and my word is PEACE.  Within the idea of peace, I have listened to God and I needed to take some steps to have a more simplified life, both in my spiritual times and in my physical, waking life.  Hence, the new layout, which I need to do some cleaning up and changes to it so it is completely simple.  I view the new look to the blog as part of a fresh start for 2014.

With the idea of peace, I was really trying to listen to what God wanted me to learn or do about peace.  Instead of instantly walking on a peaceful cloud, God has brought lots of situations in my life where I have had to claim His peace.  I am six weeks into the new year and there is already lots of change happening.  I share with you a few:

1. I stopped serving in LifeKids. Yes, you have read that right.  I was on call as a sub, but things kept happening where I couldn't sub.  After much debate and praying, I feel like I'm on a break from serving in LifeKids right now.  While I enjoyed sharing God's love with all kinds of kids from birth to ??, God has shown me right now I need to be still.  I am ministering to kids five days a week with my job as a teacher.  I was finding it hard to have enough in me to minister six days a week.  God has shown me there are seasons in life, and right now, my season is not serving in LifeKids.  It has been difficult for me to accept because I can't imagine not serving.  In fact, it has felt strange to just go to church.  But I know that God has a purpose and a plan, and if this some how, right now, leads to more peace, then I need to submit to it.  I know that one day, God will call me back to serve and I need to rest now to be ready at the right time.
2. My lifegroup for the past four years has stopped meeting together.  (Notice I didn't say stopped being friends...we have just stopped meeting to study the Word together in a discipleship manner.)  This one was really hard for me to have peace about.  I was fearful I would lose the friendships that I have made.  It still terrifies me a little to think about going to a new lifegroup.  I loved the women that God brought into my life the past four years.  However, it is very apparent that for the majority of the group, God has a new season up ahead for them and frankly, our group just wasn't the right place.  I am thankful for the lifelong friendships I've made and I trust God's guidance for a new group.  I have quite worked up the courage to go to a new one yet.  I did some looking, and really felt like I should look for a co-ed group.  I tried to look at singles groups, but have found that 31 is over quite a few group's age limit.  At the same time, I'm too young for the 'older' single groups that start around 40.  I looked at some of the ones that included both married and single people, but the day or time wasn't right.  So now I'm just waiting and hoping to make a connection to another group.  I know that God is got this, but I would be lying if I didn't say that I'm still anxious about it at times and have to turn to peace from Him.
3. Speaking of peace...I don't know if it is because I know so many people ushering in a new season of life or because Valentine's Day is around the corner and EVERY commercial on TV is about it, but I'm having a hard time finding peace about being single.  I look at my life and think to myself, "God, you know that I've really prayed to have a husband and to meet him for the past seven years.  What is taking so long?"  I have even found myself considering myself a permanent bachelorette.  In fact, the other day, I really found myself making some long term goals and when I finished, I realized that none of the goals really allowed for a husband to be involved.  I even think to myself, "Well this is it.  It is the end.  All those feeble online dating attempts, all the set-ups, they didn't work.  You're over 30 now, in fact, you will be 32 in May, so just forget about it.  If a man your age range wanted to get married, he is going to pick someone in their 20s because that is the way it goes." As you can probably tell, there is no peace there in my heart.  So once again, I'm turning to God to ask Him to get me that peace.

As I reflected on God and His word for me, peace, I realized that He is giving me peace by placing me in situations where I am having to call on Him for the peace.  I'm reminded of the lyric from Oceans, "And I will call upon Your name, and keep my eyes above the waves.  When oceans rise my soul will rest in Your embrace for I am Yours and You are mine."  Even though I don't know when I can serve in LifeKids again, when I will find my next lifegroup, if I will ever get married, I know God is holding my future in His hands.  If I call on Him, He will let the peace of Christ rule in my heart and that will be enough for me to walk daily through the uncertainty and change right now.