happy new year!

hello, world. it's almost 2007! i have had a week off from work and it has been busier than i would have liked it to be, but i have gotten sleep, spent time with family and some friends. God has touched my distant, anxious, sorrowful heart unexpectedly during my time off... in the midst of everything that still remains terribly wrong, and i am so thankful. i don't feel ready to go back to work on tuesday, nor do i feel ready to leave my family again to go back to the life that God has called me to... i am not ready to continue the daily grind of "adulthood," to see my weaknesses, faithlessness, and issues magnified on a daily basis, to fail at learning from mistakes, to ask questions not know the answers, to not know what in the world i am doing, to feel like i am doing nothing right, particularly when it comes to loving God, my "neighbors", and the people i care most about, to feel lonely, to miss certain people terribly... but Jesus is with me, and that means everything. we are alive now because God loves us and is not done with us yet.

just want to say happy new year and may Jesus fill you with fresh hope and peace as he reminds you of how faithful he has been to you in 2006 and that he holds this new year and YOU securely and closely to him.

on memorial stones (tangible reminders of what God has done, such as the twelve stones that the Israelites took out of the Jordan river when God dried it up for them to cross over) of 2006, i will post on those hopefully soon...

"And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. he said to the Israelites, 'in the future when your descendents ask their fathers, 'What do these stones mean?' tell them, 'Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.' for the LORD your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. the LORD your God did to the Jordan just what He had done to the Red Sea when He dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God." Joshua 4:20-24