Heart Chocolate

2013 is almost over, and I rejoice that I can put a painful year to rest with the message of Hope that God is working in my life.

Many of you know each year in December God focuses my heart in prayer on a word or phrase for the coming year. My word for 2012 was Family. That was the year my husband left us.

I learned that year what family really is and what the love of children, the love of my parents and siblings, and the love of my Christian family can do.

It can save a heart and pray hope from a flicker into a flame.

My word for 2013 was Faith. And my faith has been stretched and broken and rebuilt throughout an agonizing twelve months of heartbreak.

But God...is faithful.

A bruised reed He won't break. Instead He picks up His bruised and battered little ones and surrounds them with friends who hold them up and believe God for them when they feel like faith is impossible.

In addition to friends and provision and victory, God also stirred in my heart a renewed calling. Many times in the last two years I've felt useless, like the circumstances of my life that were out of my control had stolen any place I could find to serve.

But God...had a plan.

Every tear He captured in His bottle, every pain He held me through, even when I tried to push Him away. He is faithful.

I haven't written much more than lesson plans for my classes for well over a year. I've wanted to, but exhaustion and pain have a way of deadening creativity.

But God...had a purpose for it all.

God was pouring in lessons and prayers and smiles through the tears all along. Then a few weeks ago I sat down and began typing out a book idea. In fifteen minutes, I'd outlined an idea that made my heart sing again. I talked it over with my agent and got the green light to begin a project like nothing I've ever done.

So get ready because you all are a huge part of this project of prayer!

My phrase for 2014 is praying dangerously to the God of the impossible.

I long for 2014 to be a year where we see God do amazing things because we are joining Him in praying for impossible things for all who need the God of the impossible to work in their lives.

Remember... Prayer isn't what you do when you can't do anything else. Prayer is the work.

So let's begin our journey together in 2014 through prayer. The God of the impossible and the God of immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine is inviting us.

1 Thessalonians 5:17  Never stop praying.

John 6:29 Jesus told them, "This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the One He has sent."

Ephesians 3:20 Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory...

Let's pray and believe in Him and see Him do what only He can do!