The Year of Nothing

I have a story...I do!  It has taken me a long time to get where I am spiritually and mentally, and my prayer is that my story- my life- will be a witness and a love offering to Christ and to those who choose to follow me.

I love this place that I am at!  This life that has so long been plagued with negativity and self-doubt has turned in to joy, hope, and a promise of an everlasting life.  Just to let you know a little about myself, I am in my eleventh year of teaching, I have three beautiful boys (ranging in age from 3 months to 5 years) and am happily married to an incredible, Godly man.  But above all else, I am a follower of Jesus Christ, whom I have recently dedicated my life to.  Don't get me wrong,  I have always been a Christian, but have not always been the right kind of Christian.  That's where my recent story begins.

I have chosen to call my blog the "Year of Nothing" because it has a couple of very special meanings to me.  On August 6th and 7th of this year, I had the immense pleasure of getting to take part in the Global Leadership Summit through my church.  I was looking forward to going, but had no idea what the Lord had in store for me.  The worship was amazing!  Being married to a worship leader, you would think it would be nothing special, just another worship service. This was different.  I truly felt the presence of God, which I had not felt (or paid attention to feeling) in a long time.  I wanted to lift my hands and talk to God and openly worship!  This is something VERY different from the stoic sing-from-your-hymnal Southern Baptist girl!

And things only got better.  I heard some speak about leadership and that was all fine and good.  What I was so taken by was two speakers, Christine Caine and Jeff Manion.  I sat there and drank in every word that they spoke.  They preached the word of God like I had never heard before.  It wasn't a "formula" sermon like you so often find these days, but was a passionate offering of themselves to be used as vessels of the true and inerrant word of God.  I hung on every word they said and began to hear whisperings from God (thank you, Bill Hybels!) about what I needed to do with my life.  Greatness has never been a goal of mine because I was convinced I wasn't capable of such a thing.  I was RIGHT!  I am not capable of greatness, but God certainly is!  I began to get excited about my life and what God had in store for me.  So, what does God have in store for me?...

And now we come to my title and the inspiration for this blog.  I had noticed a very interesting trend in my life- things seemed to take a year to work themselves out.  My husband graduated college with his Political Science degree in May of 2008, after having spent many years in school working on a degree in Jazz Studies.  He left the Universtiy of North Texas with only 10 hours lacking on his degree, having decided (and some of it being decided for him) that it was not going to lead to a life that he wanted.  So off he went several years later to the University of Houston in hopes for a job better than teaching guitar lessons.  As I said, he graduated in May of 2008.  We thought for sure that he was going to get a job quickly.  He was a smart guy, well-aversed in the inner-workings of our government and its political policies, so who wouldn't hire him?  He didn't find a job for over a year.  A YEAR!  But for some reason, I had complete and total peace about it.  I just knew that God was going to turn everything around for us.  And he did!  It took 13 months and a week or so, but Erik was hired as the Worship Arts Director at our church.  Nothing even remotely related to political science.

So that was one example of how God has used a year to reveal his plan in my life.  The second began February 2009.  I remember it very distinctly.  One of my favorite times of year is when the new leaves just begin to bud on the trees and everything is new and fresh.  We have a small peach tree in our back yard and I had noticed it hadn't bloomed in a few years.  So I took my then three-year-old son outside and we prayed over that tree.  "Lord, please bless this tree and make it fruitful!"  We prayed diligently and sincerely, but much to our disappointment, we got nothing that spring- not ONE peach.  But this year, in April, I noticed our tree was fruiting.  By July we had so many peaches we didn't know what to do with them!  Got had truly answered prayer, but it was in his timing...a little over a year later.

That brings us back to the GLS that I had attended.  Bill Hybels, the senior pastor of the mega-church Willow Creek in Chicago, was speaking on God whisperings.  And as he was speaking I kept hearing God very clearly tell me that I was to have a year of nothing.  It just kept running over and over in my head like a command that I am to have a year of nothing.  Right then I realized that I was to (here comes a dirty word for most of you women) submit (gasp!) to my husband.  He had been telling me for a week that he wanted me to quit my job and stay home, a real challenge financially.  And seeing as school was to start the next week, a professional challenge.  But I knew right then that I was to follow what I was being asked to do, and given my past history with years of growth, I trust that the Lord knows what he is doing.  I have been called to give it all over to Him, Jesus, my Lord and my Savior.  I am not to worry about money, I am not to work outside the home (I am almost there, not quite), but I am to focus on serving my God and my family.  Period.  My prayer now?  "Lord, please bless me and make me fruitful!"

So, here I am Lord!  Ready and waiting and eager to see what you have in store for me and my family.  I truly am capable of greatness.  Perhaps not on a grand scale like Christine Caine or Jeff Manion or Bill Hybels, but I can do all things through you!  Here is my blog and my story of my Year of Nothing...

At the end of each blog, I would like to say a few words of the message of salvation to encourage you to get to know your Savior, Jesus Christ.  One of my favorite verses is not the famous and ever-quoted John 3:16, but the verse that comes directly after.  "He was not sent in to the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him."  If you don't know Christ and have been avoiding seeking a relationship with him because you feel guilty or ashamed or unlovable, know that the word of truth, the word of the Creator of the universe, says that he sent his son to save YOU.  You are worth his love and his sacrifice and he desires you!  Ask him to meet you where you are and he will.