Happy New Year everyone! I know I say this every time, but where has the time gone? It was just Thanksgiving; now Christmas has come and gone, and we have already made a grand jump into the New Year. Well I wanted to share with you something that God has been ministering in our lives. I believe we have looked at this scripture before, but this has been really, just in the front of my mind since December 1st.

“For I know the thoughts that i think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and i will hearken unto you. and ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11 – 13 KJV

So many times, as Christians, we think that we are seeking God with everything that we are. And we may in fact be doing just that! However when hard times and struggles come our way, we feel that God has abandoned us. We feel our prayers are unanswered, that God doesn’t care what our petition is. But if we were to really open our eyes, I mean REALLY OPEN THEM, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY OPEN OUR HEARTS, we might see that OUR petitions and plans were not what God had for us at all.

My husband and I had been married for almost eight years. After years of praying, and seeking God, we decided it was time to expand our family. So we began to try to have children. It was an emotional roller coaster for a year and half, with no result. After a year and half of trying, we came to the resolution that expanding our family was not something God had in His plan for us right now, and possibly not ever.

At first, my heart was devastated! We had already come to this resolution before we actually stopped trying, and it took me a while to accept this. I just couldn’t understand it. After months of prayer, with God’s help, I was able to give it to the God. That didn’t mean I didn’t still struggle with it, but God constantly reminded me “I have a plan for you and and your husband.”

So after a visit to the doctor, we decided we would stop trying for now, we would go back on contraceptives, and perhaps we would revisit the idea in the Spring, if we felt the liberty from God. That was in the beginning of September. At that point God had began to put His plan for us into action, His plan which required us giving our struggle totally to Him.

I went back to my doctor on December 1st for my annual Well Woman Visit. As I was going over the normal list of questions that the doctor asks you, the nurse comes in to say, “Congratulations Mrs.Johnson, You’re Pregnant!” I was shocked! When I got home and told David, he was shocked! We had just been told by that same doctor 4 months prior that we would not be able to have children “on our own”, that we would need help. As shocked as we were, we were just as excited and thankful!

As I was on my way home that day, I was praying because as happy as I was, I was equally as scared. Were we really ready for this? Was this really happening? God spoke to me very clearly that day. As I prayed, He said to me, “If you will just trust me, it’s going to be okay.” At that moment I knew it was not just a small miracle that we had conceived, but that God had a plan for our growing family.

The point of my story is we all go through times like this in our lives. We get so bogged down in the fact that God is not giving us what we are praying for, what we want, that we become discouraged and go into Christian Auto Pilot or we give up on God all together. We continue to go through the motions or we just become angry and bitter with God, and Satan is using the disappointment in our hearts to hold us back from us seeing exactly what God has placed in front of us.

It is so important for us to remember that no matter what we encounter in our lives: disappointment, hurt, anguish, criticism, sickness, death, loss, discouragement, abuse, or we feel like we can’t go another step, that God has a plan for our lives. His plan is to prosper us not to harm us, to give us HIS expected end. If we will trust Him and give everything to Him, He will use every aspect of our lives for His honor and glory and He will use all these things and work them for our good (Romans 8:28).

Dear God – let us all have an unexpected New Year. Let us surrender all to you so that 2017 is our most unexpected an wonderful year yet because we are completely seeking you. Help each and everyone of us to turn loose of everything in our lives that we are holding onto that is hindering us from 100% accepting your will for our lives. Help us to walk in your way blindly, so that we may not see anything of the world, but only your greatness, and the greatness you have promised to bestow upon us. Amen.