Expect the Great (Trust - Part I)

Hello, blogland!  So I had written a really great post, full of Darvisms and my computer blinked and I lost it.  I have been working on it for over an hour; it didn't even save part of the draft... so I'm a bit bummed; I'm not sure I can recreate it. *sigh* 
But here goes:

I hope that 2016 has been kind to everyone thus far. It is off to a great start in my world (save this bogus computer issue a few minutes ago); nothing tangible has changed, but I'm feeling magnificent and excited about the new and great things in front of me for 2016! (Again, save for this bogus computer issue... windows 10, we are not friends right now! And while I'm at it, Blogger either; you are autosaving this post, but saved NOTHING from the one I lost... just saying).

The kiddos are back in school and I've started another contract project.  Today is the Tween's birthday; she's 12 now!  Which reminds me that I have to do some awesome mommy stuff for her later today...  Life is good!  I got a new planner system (motivated by one of my gifts from my 2015 Secret Sistah) and I spent Saturday setting it up in the pretty new binder that I purchased for it (I love office and organizing products).  Wanna see?  Here you go (it is a project life, Becky Higgins planner):

Isn't it cute????  I'm a sucker for a new planner, even if I already have one, go figure!  And notebooks.  I love notebooks...  But I digress.

I'm sure everyone is still basking in the glow of a new year and all of the new expectations, hopes and dreams that come with it.  This is the time of year when most people, myself included, sit down and try to plot a course for the year of goals that they would want to see accomplished, both big and small.  I like to set out my goals in written form, in what I used to call my "Plan 180," but I think that name will change this year.  My "plan" encompasses each and every aspect of my life and I commit to accomplish certain things each year.  This year I will take the additional step of selecting one goal from each category to share with my Journey Sister, who will be my cheerleader and drill sergeant as I strive to accomplish them this year.  Whatever you call them, resolutions, intentions, plans, goals, dreams, I highly encourage you to write them down for a visual reminder throughout the year and also so that you can check them off as you reach them.

Are you a dreamer?  I am.  I have too many dreams to count; they scare me sometimes, because I feel that I don't have enough time to even attempt to flesh them all out, let alone try and accomplish them.  Some have been in my head for many years, others are new. The thing is though, that they don't go away.  Even if I put them out of my mind for awhile, eventually, they come back.  

At watch night service, on the dawn of the new year, Pastor Singleton spoke about Joseph, the great dreamer.  The scripture text was Genesis 50:22-26, Exodus 13:19.  For those of you unfamiliar with Joseph's story, here it is in a nutshell (you can also read it in beginning with Genesis 37):  Joseph was the youngest son of Jacob and his favorite.  Because Joseph was his favorite, Jacob made him a coat of many colors.  His brothers hated him (haters!).  At the age of 17, Joseph had several dreams that he shared with his haters, in which he dreamed that he would reign over them and they would bow down to him.  The haters didn't like that at all.  One day his haters plotted to kill him. His brother Reuben was the only one who had compassion and urged the others not to kill him but to throw him alive into a pit instead (and he planned to go back and rescue him later).  The haters/his brothers, ended up selling Joseph to some merchants who were traveling to Egypt. When he got to Egypt, Joseph was sold to Potiphar and because the Lord was with him, he prospered and was promoted.  A misunderstanding with Potiphar's wife landed him in jail (she wanted him and he refused so she lied on him); Joseph again prospered and was promoted while in jail. Joseph had the gift of dream interpretation and he interpreted dreams while in prison.  News of his gift got to Pharaoh, who summoned Joseph to interpret a dream, and eventually promoted Joseph over everything in the land.  As time passed, a famine struck the land and the only food was in Egypt.  Joseph's haters, I mean brothers, were placed in the position of having to come to Egypt to try and buy food.  At the end of the day, just as was predicted in the dream Joseph had many years ago, Joseph reigned over his brothers and they had to bow down to him (they didn't recognize him, although he recognized them and he never took money from them but gave them more than they asked for and returned their money to them).  Joseph eventually reconciled with his family and all was well (see Genesis 50:19-21).  

What can we learn from Joseph's story?  I'm glad you asked (straight from Pastor Singleton's message):

1) Whenever you have a dream, there will always be someone to throw dirt on it and try to extinguish it (ie, haters);

2) Dreamers go through hard times, hurt and humiliation (see Genesis 37: 5-8);

3) Joseph was elevated so that he could bless others; his story shows that faith cannot be destroyed by circumstances; 

4) Joseph never let his success make him lose sight of his greater expectations;

5) At the end of his life, he made his family promise not to leave his bones in Egypt (the land of his death), but instead to take them to the promised land (the land of his promise);

6) We must not only keep the faith, but we also have the responsibility to pass on the faith to others; and

7) What God has promised must come to pass; keep the faith and keep passing it on!

What does all of this mean???  Time for the Darvisms now:   For you (and myself, I am definitely talking to myself today), don't be afraid to dream big.  If God has given you a big dream or several big dreams and nothing around you looks as if any of it is possible, think again.  Keep your faith intact, no matter what it looks like.  Scripture says, "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."  Philippians 3:14.  Keep moving!  Don't dim or lower your expectations because of what it may look like around you.  God took a truly negative circumstance for Joseph by his haters and turned it around for the future good of not only Joseph, but for his entire family.  And through it all, Joseph had compassion for his brothers, even after what they did to him and he used his success and position to bless them.  I challenge you to expect the great from your 2016 plans, intentions, goals and dreams, as God has given them to you, and keep pressing forward!  Here's a song to motivate you, Expect the Great by Jonathan Nelson, you can listen to it here.  (One day I will figure out how to embed the video in the post...)

So as I rush to finish my 2016 plan, I will be praying over all that I have written and asking God to bless the dreams He has put inside of me.  I fully expect the great and plan to have a praise party as I celebrate each and every blessing this year!  What about you - do you expect the great in 2016???  You know the drill - Holla @ Darvi and let's talk about it!  If you share something, I will add it to my prayer log to touch and agree with you on your great this year!  As always, be blessed!

xoxoxoxo

Hello, 2016!

Happy New Year, Blogland!  Like the graphic?  It is from "Graphics by Pininkie at Mygrafico."  I thought it was pretty cute!  The end of 2015 found me in church with the tween (she had to dance at Watch Night Service).  It was the first time in a long time that I brought in the new year at church (I wanna say the last time was NYE 2003...)!  The young people did a wonderful job!  We were home before 12:30 and I didn't even try to stay up much later than that.  Times have definitely changed...

The end of 2015 was bittersweet in so many ways; if you will allow me to be transparent for just a moment.  This week has been a tough one.  Number 1, my heart is heavy for my friends/family who lost loved ones this week (right after Christmas and before the new year came).  So often we take for granted the things we "plan," often forgetting that the future doesn't belong to us... The worse part of it all is that each of these lost loved ones were only a year or two older than I am; no one was older than 50.  That is very sobering to me- this thing called life can be very fleeting...  And I just found out Natalie Cole died!  

Number 2, my heart is heavy for all that I have lost over the past few years in this season of loss in my life.  I don't do change well (remember that?  I wrote about it here).  I have been in this season of loss for 10 years now.  There have been big losses as well as little losses. The losses have been relational, personal, health, material, financial, professional, friendships, my grandma - you name it, I've lost it!  Some of those losses have knocked me down (on the inside, sometimes physically manifest on the outside).  And as difficult as it's been, I keep getting back up to try and pull it back together just one more time.  Although each time it seems like I stay down a little longer, I keep getting back up.  That could mean many things:  that I am a fool or a glutton for punishment or maybe, just maybe there's something better out there if I keep pressing on.  A lot of times I do feel foolish and I just want to quit and I let myself have a pity party for a few (kinda like now) but eventually, I get back up.  For as down as I might be, there is something in me that won't stop believing that there is "better" and that I can have it!

2015 was a year filled with some low-lows. I can't say high-highs; just mid-range highs.  I am happy to see it go, quite frankly.  There were lots of lessons learned, some I didn't want to learn, but they came anyway, whether I wanted them or not.  My beliefs were tested and some shattered.  My world was shattered and I'm still picking up the pieces and trying to find the glue to put it back together in a way that fits for what my life looks like now.  Let me be honest- it's downright frightening!  And what makes it even more frightening is that there are two not so little people looking at me to see how I manage all of this (the tween and teen) because surely that will shape how they manage hurts, disappointments, change and loss in their own lives.  For with each loss that I have had, it has affected them too.  And more than anything, I want them to be ok...

So here we are, on the first day of 2016, and all is quiet in my house.  Literally the only sound is me pecking away at this keyboard, and I'm doing that from the comfort of my bed! My mind and my emotions are all over the place - I've put off thinking and writing because I've been trying to get a handle on it all!  And it's just hard.  I was so disappointed in 2015 that I'm almost afraid to want anything in 2016 but survival.  There are things I want, sure, but I've been beat down so much that I'm scared to even put them in the universe lest they be taken away from me too...which is certainly not how I intended to start the year, but it's how I feel at this particular time.  That being said, I'm not quite ready to say any of that stuff yet, but I might be tomorrow - depends on how the rest of today pans out (real talk).  

All of which brings me to my 2016 Word of the Year.  For the past 10 years, a group of friends and I have participated in the One Little Word Challenge.  I originally learned of this in 2006 from Creating Keepsakes Magazine (one of my favorite scrapbooking magazines that has since gone on to glory) and we started doing it in 2007.  The concept is that you choose a word at the end of the previous year or beginning of the new year to guide and reflect on throughout the year as you go about this thing called life.  The concept was coined by Ali Edwards, and you can read more about it here.  Something that she wrote I wanna share here:  

"A single word can be a powerful thing... It can be the ripple in the pond that changes everything.  It can be sharp and biting or rich and soft and slow."  

I encourage you to go read the post, google it, and maybe you will be inspired to choose a word for your year.  Anyway, I've been doing this since 2007 and some years my words were spot on, other years I missed them like the Cubs missed going to the world series last year!  But, good, bad and otherwise, here are my past words:

2007 - Transition

2008 - Perseverance

2009 - Optimism

2010 - Reality

2011 - Renewal

2012 - Excel

2013 - Embrace

2014 - Restore

2015 - Be...

 And without further ado, my word for 2016 is:  WISDOM.  

Wisdom is defined as the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.  Webster's defines it as knowledge that is gained by having many experiences in life; the natural ability to understand things that most other people cannot understand; the knowledge of what is proper or reasonable.  That's how I want to live 2016- as a wise woman.  One who has learned from her many life experiences and applies those lessons to her current life.  My grandmother was a wise woman and I strive to be like her, when it's all said and done.

That's it, that's all.  2016, we are here!  Ready to tackle all that you throw our way (I think)! So what about you - anyone else do a Word of the Year/One Little Word Challenge and is willing to share your word here?  You know the drill, Holla @ Darvi!  Be Blessed and enjoy this first day of the new year!

xoxoxo