We are able–Part 1

At the beginning of 2011 my husband and I chose the word “Articulation” as our motto or guiding light for the new year.

We had big plans for writing (books, even!) … and then came the earthquake/tsunami and washed away our carefully laid plans along with everything else.

And yet, in an unexpected way, that motto did guide us in 2011.  We didn’t write the books and articles we had planned – but we did articulate in other mediums.

This year I chose a very different motto. (My husband didn’t pick one until recently.)

It’s a bit of wisdom that’s been hanging on our washroom wall for years:  "It’s not the happy people who are thankful. It’s the thankful people who are happy.” 

Two years ago it was easy to say, “I love my life.”  And I still do. But last year was a year of loss. There was the tsunami of course. But it was also a year when so many family and friends died and colleagues left for greener pastures that the verse I received in the New Year’s Eve lottery seemed eminently appropriate:

Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel--all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him."    - 1Kings 19:18

Of course, to be fair, none of our loved ones had actually reneged on God – and most of them didn’t mean to leave us just now. But we were beginning to have abandonment issues.

So I chose to choose thankfulness.

And now… I find God encouraging me at every turn.

I smiled big when I heard my husband’s choice of motto for the year. “One of you shall rout a thousand.”  I feel that’s exactly what God’s been trying to tell me.