It is the wee hours of the morning and I am sitting in my recliner with a cozy blanket across my lap, with my Lysa Terkeurst book beside me with a steaming cup of coffee.  Oh and let me not forget the sounds of comfort that surround me, worship music playing softly from my alexa, dog snoring and the sound of rain. Why am I up at this hour on a Saturday morning when I could be tucked snuggly in my bed sleeping? First my new puppy who slept for a solid seven and now was ready to go out and be fed and my inability to fall back to sleep. It is in times like theses that I come to know God better. We have our best conversations during times like this.  He knew I needed to come to a new understanding of something today and wrap up my feelings of this past year.  

Every year I pray for a word. A word that I  would pray on throughout the year and focus my life on. This year my word was renew.  I wasn't sure how this word would be played out in my life this year. First, to be renewed you have to be cleansed, stripped down to the natural self and then you can be renewed.  Like a wooden rocking chair that needs to be restained. You have to strip the old stain off and sand the heck out of it and then you can restain it. If you try to stain over the old stain the wood wont absorb the new stain and the old stain is still there.  I was stripped down to the old wood this year by God.  I started this year with a life changing surgery that changed the way I had to do things. I had a ACDF repair ( my cervcical vertebrae were fused from C3-C7). Also I was left with a scar across my neck. I was forced to sit still and not do anything.  That is so not like me. But during that time of stillness I prayed and focused on God and getting to know him better.  Each time I prayed I asked God for a much needed direction in my life which led me to leaving my church that I was a current member. It would be one of the most hardest decisions in my life because I would be attending a different church than my husband. I went to several churches and after about 3 months I went back to my home church. The church that raised me as one of my friends said the other night. I felt like I was at home at last.  They wrapped their arms around me and loved on me that the prodigal son. Not only have they loved on me they have shared some gut wrenching truth with me in my Sunday school class.  Truths that I needed to hear in sermons that have help me get back to my natural wood for the past seven months. I had become and old used rocking chair. 

Not only was changing churches was a big renewl in my life but I changed jobs in May. Now you I am not a spring chicken.  I have been a labor and delivery nurse for 29 years and now I was looking for something that was a little less physical because without much success my job would not work with me in changing roles. So God said lets get busy looking and he provided and opportunity for me. I was now interviewing for a job in an Chemotherapy Infusion Unit. WHAT?  Believe it or not I got the job and was now about to start a new adventure.  Lets make this brain work.  I have been blessed  unmeasurably. The patients are the sweetest ever and the staff is Fantastic. I had been sanded down by making me learn something new and see my worth.  My sense of worth was gone from a job that beat me down every day and a church that made me feel like I was unworthy as a friend or member.

Now that I had been stripped down I was ready for the refinishing. God has kept his hand on me the entire time through all this. He still had to wrap this year up for me by showing me even though I had been refinished you could still see my scars and that would be the new me.  My scar on my neck will always be there as well as the new on down my face from skin cancer removed last week. He also showed me that my scars on my heart would always be there.  Which remind me of my favorite quote." Scars remind u where we've been. They don't have to dictate where we are going."   Those scars will always be there and sometime they will hurt.  Like last night I saw a post where a group of women I longed to be a part of,and their group posted they were blessed to have each other.  I burst into tears like a big baby but I made the decision to get rid of FB for good because I do not want it to dictate my feelings anymore. God was sanding a final few rough edges of and brought these words to me this morning through Lysa Terkeurst.  I have to realize when I see certain "they will continue to walk and live on their side of street and I will continue to walk and live my life on my side of the other side of the street. I have learned this promise this year  And the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while , will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast (1 Peter 5:10)