Colombian Brewed: Celebrating God's Faithfulness!

Psalm 16:11

You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I sit here tonight reflecting on the past year and looking ahead to future grace in Jesus in the upcoming year. I am so grateful for the past year and what God has done in our family and I'm enthusiastically looking forward to the journey of the next year.

Today was really the best day-before-my-birthday I have ever had. So much about today is a reflection on what God has been doing in our lives this past year.

God has sustained our marriage and blessed it with more depth and love. Through challenges and trials and blessings God has become more precious to each of us and we have become closer through all of it. My incredible husband returned yesterday from a week long work trip to Europe. He brought me beautiful roses. Even more sweeter still he stopped on his way home from the airport to pick up groceries. This is a big deal, folks! After three flights and with lay-overs and being awake for nearly 24 hours he stopped to do the grocery shopping to make my week easier!

God has blessed us with a local church family who loves to worship Him. When we moved we knew we would miss our Bethlehem church family immensely. We still miss them, but God has shown us the sweetness of a local body of believers who loves Him and has warmly welcomed us. This morning we went to church. I love going to church! Watching our oldest daughter teach pre-school to our youngest son's class is such a blessing and a testimony of how God can redeem such broken pasts. Being able to enjoy worship and the Word as a family, including sharing that time with grandparents and friends is such a treat.

God has moved our family to be able to be close to both sets of grandparents so that our children can have deeper relationships with all of their grandparents. After church we met my parents and had a picnic and hiked a scenic overlook with the entire family. Even our 2 year old was able to hike all the way to the top holding Nana's hand. It wasn't a long hike but the location was a special childhood memory of mine and it was fun to bring our children there for the first time.

God has provided this amazing farm home and lifestyle where we can raise our family. I still pinch myself regularly just to make sure it is real and not a dream. We live in this very quiet, peaceful place. It is a dream come true for me. Not everyone desires to live on a farm that is off the grid but I do! We returned home for some quiet time and then Nic and I snuck out to the barn, saddled up the horses, and took a long, quiet ride through the CRP while the kids had a "pick your own supper" inside.

God is growing our children's hearts and is at work in our relationships. After putting the littles to bed I took a long walk down a quiet country road with our second oldest daughter. It was an absolutely beautiful day for the day-before-my-birthday!

I enjoy reflecting on the past, making plans and preparations for the future, and recounting what God has done. I love endings and new beginnings: the end of one calendar year and the beginning of the next, the end of a school year and the beginning of summer, the end of summer and the beginning of the school year, the end of one year of life and the beginning of another. These are opportunities to testify of the goodness of the Lord and to look ahead to future grace because the Lord promises He will never leave us or forsake us.