Expectant

Each year my Aunt asks me, "So what's your WORD this year?" She chooses a word each year that God lays on her heart and that word is her theme and focus for that year. She started doing this years ago and each year urges me to choose a word and participate alongside her. Each year I try to pick out a good word that I believe will be fitting for that year or something I know I need to work on, but honestly no word from the past really sticks out as much as the word I've chosen for 2016. In January, I chose the word "Expectant" for this year. At that time, I knew 2016 would hold many changes for my family, but I wanted to go into this year full of expectation of what God was going to do instead of being fearful or anxious about the chaos that was soon to come. I really looked at 2016 as a "Here God, You can have it" type of year knowing that it would hold more than I could handle on my own. Between expecting our second child and moving to a new city for my husband's job, 2016 was going to be a big year for the Gale family. But this word has come to mean so much more as this year has unfolded.

 

Within a few weeks of deciding to be expectant and hopeful of what God would do this year, I had to go to the ER twice for a hemorrhage and was told I had a "threatened miscarriage". Already, 2016 wasn't going nearly as I expected and we were only a month in. The medical bills rolled in (and kept rolling in) and we were left helplessly fighting for our baby's life in a high-risk pregnancy, knowing prayer was the only thing we could really do to be active about the situation. In some ways, it felt like we were drowning. Asking God....why? I had expectations for this year, but this wasn't it. Despite this scary situation, God has remained strong and faithful to us. I never wanted to go through something like this, but in some weird ways, I can say I'm thankful for it. God has shown Himself as everything His Word claims He is to me during this time. He's worked things out in amazing ways. God has blown my expectations out of the water! He has shown up in huge ways and that is exactly what I had hoped for 2016. While it may not look how I would have wanted it to, choosing to expect big things from God this year was right on point.

The next month, Josh stood before 3 boards hoping to pass and become a provisional Ordained Elder in the United Methodist Church. Josh has been working towards this for years and it's been quite the process. He went through 3 years of seminary, wrote what seemed like a million pages worth of paperwork, papers, and Bible studies, sat through many meetings, and spent hours upon hours preparing for this moment. Thankfully, he passed!! While this was so exciting for our family, it also confirmed that we would definitely be moving to a new church in a new town in June. We are nervous, but trusting. Trying our very best to believe God will bring us to where we need to be. A month after he passed the boards, we found out that we would be moving to Lizella, GA and that Josh would be the head Pastor at Lizella UMC!

We are so excited for our new adventure, but also quite nervous to move to a brand new place. Or maybe I should say that I am! This is my first big move and if you haven't noticed over the few years I've been writing this blog, I'm not a fan of change. We are leaving behind family, a church family that we adore, friends, our first home, and the entire life we've build as a married couple. I'm moving to a place where I don't know a soul (thankfully we will have family somewhat close by) and everything about our life is going to change. While this is scary, it is also quite exciting and another chance for me to cling to the hope of being expectant for God to move in awesome ways during this next chapter. God has already allowed us to be placed at a wonderful appointment with a new, loving church family. We get to live in a parsonage that the church has so kindly been working hard to make perfect for our arrival. Josh and I are also getting to live out our dreams by taking this leap of faith and having high expectations of what God is going to do despite the unknown -- he will be the Pastor is his "own" church, continuing the process of becoming a fully Ordained Elder in the UMC and I will officially be a stay-at-home mom! We have both been dreaming of the day we would get to do these things for a very long time and are so excited the opportunity is finally here. God has truly taken care of us and provided above and beyond.

We are going into the month of May and I feel like my head is spinning. We have so much going on over the next 6 weeks. I always feel like we are busy and like our life is chaotic and I think surely one day it will slow down....but it only amps up! Each year life gets crazier, but despite the (extra long) laundry list of things going on in the next few months, I'm in a good place. Josh was preaching about God's timing last Sunday and saying that this concept has been quite prevalent in our lives over the past few months. He couldn't be more right. We have been so dependent on God and so trusting that God's timing and His plans will lead us to the right place. Josh and I have really been leaning on God more than ever to guide us and while there have been many ups and downs; there is something so peace-giving about trusting God and allowing Him to work in us. What an awesome thing to be able to say that God is changing the world and we get to be a small part of it, by allowing Him to work in us. Starting off the year choosing to be expectant and hopeful of what God would do this year was bold for me (normally I would be having a panic attack in the corner thinking of all the stresses to come), but letting go and allowing God to work in our lives has been such an amazing experience. God is working around us, working in us, and moving mountains for us and this world -- I had every right to be expectant of all the big things that God would do this year because He's doing them! God is moving in His way and His timing and I'm so thankful to be a part of it. While I have no idea what the future holds (more than ever), I'm going into this new chapter excited and expectant. It's such an encouraging and peace-giving place to be -- where God is.