Welcome to 2023.

We are about 12 days in.

How is it going for you?

Did you make any resolutions or goals?

Honestly, this is the first year in many years that I haven’t.

Normally, I would be kicking off some kind of diet re-set.

I decided not to this year.

At the tail end of December, I came across a scripture in Matthew. It literally jumped off of the page in my face.

Surely, I had read it many times before, but this time it hit different.

“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” Matthew 24:35

If I had one word to describe 2022, it would be the year of HOPE.

Last January was very difficult.

My father-in-law passed away on January 26th.

We were shocked. We were sad. We felt like we had been punched in the stomach.

It was our first parental loss, and it was a painful one.

Soon after his passing, rolling into February, both of my children were suffering from other heartaches and heartbreaks.

By February’s end, I felt like someone was holding a pillow over my face and I was suffocating.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a miracle.

If you open your eyes, really, open your eyes…

You will see them too.

This one particular morning, my daughter was headed off to school.

She sat down next to me as I was writing in my prayer journal.

“Mom, please pray for me. I am just having a hard time.”

Putting my notebook aside, I spent the next few minutes talking to her. Tears running down her precious cheeks.

As a mother, seeing your babies cry is the absolute hardest of things to see.