MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Friends, we have officially made it to the year 2021. JUMANJI!! (did anyone yell JUMANJI at midnight?)

For many of you, if not all, seeing the end of 2020 was like winning a million bucks! (is winning a million bucks still an exciting thing for most people? I mean, I know I’d be VERY thrilled to see a million bucks enter my bank account #missionarylife.) I was happy to see the end of 2020 as well, but mostly because I am really excited to see what God has in store for the year 2021.

As crazy as 2020 was, it was definitely a year where I saw God move, in my life, in ways that I could not have even fathomed He would. 2020 was also a year of “stepping out of my little comfy box” – you know how we get, we’re so used to doing things one way, that we can do it with our eyes close and not be changed at all.

It’s like my grandma (love and miss you gram) making her mac & cheese. She had been making her mac & cheese the same way for years; so much so, that she could do it by memory and “by the consistency of sauce” before baking (anyone else’s grandma decide how much milk/cheese to add to their cheese sauce by stirring instead of measuring?). She could make her mac & cheese (or shoot, her sweet potato pies) with “her eyes closed” if she needed to..hehe. However, say she wanted to make her mac but was told that she could no longer use the ingredients that she was used to, this would cause her to HAVE to think “out of the box” in order to accomplish what used to be a very “simple task”. This is how I’ve seen this year for me.

What used to be something that I would normally do, without much thought, has turned into something that I now have to be more creative to accomplish. But I see this as a good thing, really.

My God is the Creator and is the most creative. He has done so many things in new ways this year, that it has truly blown my mind and has made me love Him more. If my God is creative, then why shouldn’t I be?

As I’ve mentioned before, I am a missionary here in Spain, alongside of my husband, Andrew. We are both volunteer staffs at the YWAM (Youth With A Mission) Madrid base. Andrew works with a ministry here called Impact. During the summer, Impact normally has their tour, where they put on a show and share the gospel in various cities, working with a local church. However, with COVID, they were not able to go on their tour. Not being able to go on their tour caused them to have to “think out of the box” for ways in which they could still share the gospel – and so they did. Instead of going on tour, they had “balcony shows” right where they were, and were able to share the gospel with the neighborhood.

It’s crazy how we can miss opportunities that are right in front of us until so many things are stripped away.

And it’s crazy how quickly I can get caught up rambling on.

I’ve learned…change is a good thing. Being a willing vessel, makes it more likely that God will use me in greater ways.

My encouragement to you…embrace change; maybe it’s through the change that God will work out what it is you’ve been waiting for.