God is Still in Control – Knowing Something was Going to Happen

I’ve told some people I was expecting something like this to happen, that God was preparing me. There are many different reasons I say this, but below is a bit of the post I wrote at the beginning of the year and a few days before I wrote this one, I mentioned not liking what I thought God was saying about 2016 and being very anxious about it.  

Last night I started hearing this (audiobooks always for me, even the Bible):

But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them.

And

Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy.  Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world.  Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.
John 16:4, 20-22 NASB
http://bible.com/100/jhn.16.4-22.NASB

My husband’s murder was evil and God understands and shares my grief.  But I know that the God of love prevails in the end. And I pray Shah already has forgotten the anguish because he knows the end.

It’s Coming – 2016 – New Year

I’m getting ready for another year and a new focus. I might have to go back to the chalkboard method. I liked the way it kept my goals in front of me all year long. I’m happy for the nearly 4 day weekend. As I’ve listen to podcasts from two of my very favorite speakers, Tim Keller and Francis Chan, my initial thoughts from a day or two have morphed into something very exciting. It’s still not concrete, but to the extent I can put it in words, it’s morphing from a focus on stripping away, which to me implies loss, to a single minded focus on Jesus. It’s the same thing, but a radically different focus.
Last night, a bought of anxiety, nearly ran me off the tracks, and I’ll write more about that I’m a bit. But today my happily caffeinated self, is ready to run into the new year with feet a blazing.