Each year the women in my family gather at Christmastime for a dinner of laughter, intimacy, and reflection.
It's a fun time, but it's not JUST a fun time. It's a time of honesty and depth that I have grown to love and look forward to. This year, my one of my sisters asked the whole group what their high point of the year was. I have to confess, I dreaded answering the question when my turn came. It's not that I didn't have high points, I surely did. It just was a really hard year for our family. We moved our brood of seven from small town PA to big city Chicago, and honestly it was just hard. It was hard discerning God's call to a new church, it was a whole crazy roller coaster selling and buying homes. It was a lot of goodbye tears, a massive learning curve, and just a whole lot of plain old work and faith that God would take good care of us. So, simply saying a high point as an answer to her question, didn't seem to really do justice to our year. So instead or truly answering the question, I said that I was looking forward to all that God had for us in 2020 as we begin to really settle in.
But, that question stuck with me.
What WAS my high point? Did I have one? On the long drive home from Christmas vacation, I was struck with my true high point: God's Word.
I know it probably sounds like a really weird high point, but I cannot tell you of all the ways that God used his word to pull me through this year. Even though we picked our Dwell verses for 2019 (well before we knew we'd be moving), it was like we chose them with the move in mind. When I was uncertain of where we'd even be in the coming year, God met me with the promise of his goodness (Lam. 3:25). When the sale of our house fell through, he reminded me that he was the one fighting my battles (Ex. 14:14). When we walked our new neighborhood for the first time with our kids, I had Joshua 1:9 on my tongue: Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. I am moved to tears to think of how significant these words were to me, and still are.
God's Word is the way that I know him. It's what tells me who he is and who I am. It tells me of his great love for me. And, I'm grounded when I am in it, I find joy and purpose. I know who I am and what I am supposed to do. Truly, it's not just my 2019 high point, it's the high point of my life.
What was YOUR high point of 2019?
How have you seen God speak to you through his word this past year?
