2017 In Review

2017

What a joyous, wonderful, settling year for us! We started our year with the sweetest retreat of investing into our marriage, and deep investment was a theme throughout the whole of the year. We worked hard, endured my studies in seminary, invited others into our little home, and had the joy of seeing others grow in Christ. We grew to love our small group and saw tremendous benefits to our walks with God and marriage through our time with those families. We traveled a lot – sweet time with Charlotte friends, visits to New Hampshire, time with the McDonalds at the Camp and at Thanksgiving, travel to see friends to get married, an amazing anniversary trip to Oregon and Washington, and several camping trips on our own. We saw God’s provision countless times, through joy in ministry, through your new job with the government, through God’s help in my health ups and downs, through precious friendships, through our families, through seeing and fighting sin in our own lives, and through greater trust and sweetness in our marriage. We will never forget waking up in Spindle Hill cottage to falling snow, or the delightful chaos of eight babies at the camp, or our cozy Saturday mornings, or our bike rides through falling leaves, or the sight of the sun setting into the Pacific on glorious Shi Shi beach, or sipping mulled wine under an umbrella next to a fire in the rain, or the countless conversations we’ve had where God has knit our hearts ever deeper into one. Marriage and life with you is truly far better than I could have ever imagined. I daily grow in my love, trust, and vast thankfulness for you, Kyle, my greatest gift next to Jesus. I am eager, rather than anxious, for the adventures to come by your side. I trust you. I love you, forever.

This was a year of dreaming for children. Dreams of land and home and community. So many dreams. For you holding me while I cried as my body ached. For celebrating and toasting semesters finished, jobs completed, new jobs begun, birthdays, anniversaries, Saturday breakfasts, and so much more. For camping in wild and beautiful places. For growing in our marriage which was wonderful from the start, but oh how much trust we yet had to build. And still have to build. For holding friends' babies. For miles of interstate. For sharing our food and our home and our very lives. For nourishing relationships. For discipling others. For loving our little nieces and nephews so deeply it brings tears to the eyes. For 'stooping' and summer cook-outs. For searching for swimming holes. For seeking out and rejoicing in beauty wherever we can find it. For Sabbaths and the liturgy of the ordinary: reading, praying, worshipping, and the fellowship of the saints. For the blessed simplicity of embracing rest and rejecting the idolatry of business. For another trip 'round the sun, knowing God and finding our lives and joy secure in him.

We labor unto Glory, 'til Heaven and Earth are one. We labor unto Glory, Until God's kingdom comes.