All of my thankfulness in 2017 can be summed up in one word.

REDEMPTION

Never before have I really understood the depth and breadth of that word.  Never before have I felt the grandness of that action.  Never before have I been given the gift of so much redemption in my life as I have this year.

Jake’s freak accident.  COMPLETE redemption and TOTAL healing.  Why?  No idea.  But I will NOT ask, I WILL give.  I will give Jake and his brother’s life totally to the Lord.  I will give my need to control to the Lord.  I will know that, no matter the outcome, He works ALL things for the glory of God and that His ways are SO much better than mine.  May I ALWAYS say these words.  May I always.

Harvey.  The storm of all storms.  Not in the sense of lives lost, but in the sense of destruction and grief of our sweet homes.  But wow.  Look at Houston and the rally of all of us with our neighbors.  What a display of total redemption after a storm.  I am so honored to live in this amazing city.  The help of the church and our neighbors in Friendswood alone brought me to tears so so so many times.  Thankful doesn’t even do it justice.

And you wanna talk about redemption?  Our marriage is now the absolute extreme display to me in what redemption truly is.  With the power of prayer, the holy spirit in our hearts and a daily laying down of our self Joe and I can FINALLY say that we get what is means to be married.  Y’all…Joe and I should not still be together.  By the worlds standards we should be in the midst of a divorce.  And that is what Satan wanted for us.  There are NO OTHER WORDS to say other than Thank you Jesus.  Thank you for your gift of redemption.  And not just the “lip service” version of redemption…but pure, true and real redemption.  Thank you Jesus for not EVER giving up on us.  For fighting with your angels on our behalf.  For going before us and putting friends in our lives to help pull us thru.  For putting in BOTH of our hearts that we want to fight for you and us.  Your grace is so sufficient.  I cannot wait to use this testimony of you in our lives for others…one day.  Let us heal.  Let us center.  Let us build back up on the rock of our foundation and let streams spring forth for His glory.

Thank you 2017.  Thank you for being SO HARD that we can no longer do any of this on our own.  Thank you for breaking us.  Thank you for bringing us back to Jesus and strengthening us more than we ever could have imagined.  May You use this to bring You SO MUCH more glory!

HUGE thanks to Haley for our sweet family pics.