2011...never again, 2012...stay tuned!

Well, as you can see I am a terrible blogger. I could promise that 2012 will be different...but since my life continues to be so full without blogging, I doubt that promise would have much impact on my changing my ways in the new year. As many people have told me over the past three years, "You should be writing all of this down!", I have wondered if blogging could become my journal of sorts for some of the things God has been teaching me on this new adventure He has called me to. Sometimes I call this new adventure a roller coaster ride where I find myself hanging on for dear life.

I have never journal-ed, so it would certainly be a challenge for me to begin now (at almost 53 years of age) and no doubt a challenge for your eyes and mind, should you decide to follow my blog posts. But since I find myself alone in the pre-dawn at my mother-in-laws on this last day of 2011, I will at least post a final blog for this eventful year. I think for this post I will take you back prior to March 18, 2008. The four year anniversary of that life-changing moment will be here soon. That is the day God broke into my world and said to me, "I want you to coordinate the adoption of deaf orphans in the world." Nothing has caused the shock His words created that morning. Shock that I heard His voice and shock of what He was telling me to do. I was driving to class at Gardner-Webb University (GWU) in Boiling Springs, NC that morning, just as I had done for the past 5+ years. I had been making that trek from Asheville to the GWU campus since the fall of 2003. It is a 70 mile trip...one way.

Following the Lord's leading, I returned to college at the age of 41 in the fall of 2000. My husband, Charles, was in full support (emotionally and financially) of me doing so. Since our youngest, Joseph, was still in middle school, I chose not to be a full-time student, which meant my two year associate's degree in American Sign Language Interpreting became a three year degree. I do not want to mislead you, I was not one of His "instantly" obedient children in this...returning to college. I had refused to follow His nudging me to go back to school for two years stating that I was too busy doing what He had already asked me to do. Don't misunderstand me, I was fully following the Lord on a day-to-day basis; asking Him to lead me each day, to work through me, to be honored by my life. And I was exactly where I believe He had placed me...wife, mom, Bible Study Fellowship discussion leader, Asheville Christian Academy (ACA) Land Search Committee member , Mission's Committee member at my church, etc. You get the idea. Anyway--after two years, amazingly, two of the most time consuming duties came to an end. God did not remove them, mind you, but in the spring of 2000 I completed the 7-year BSF program and ACA purchased land. In late fall of 1999, through my BSF study questions, God made it evident...one more time...that He wanted me to go back to school and become a "certified" interpreter. Little did I know what that meant.

Well, as the sun comes up this morning this household is waking up to New Year's Eve. Only God knows the plans He has for each of us in the year 2012. We will see when I get back to this continuing saga....so stay tuned!

¹⁰ This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. ¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ¹² Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. ¹⁴ I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity.^[b] I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile." Jeremiah 29:10-13