This past year has been a real testing of my faith and one of the most life-changing years of my life. Most significant is spiritual change in my life; I have chronicled at-length God's mercy to me as He brought me from intense legalism to a grace-filled perspective. The end of this post contains links to many pertinent posts, or see my favorite post I've written on grace. As I summarized to a friend last night:
I entered 2006 resolved to forward my sanctification by my own strength, for my own glory. I leave 2006 praying for God to give me grace to grow more and more like Him that I might, even in my feebleness, proclaim His excellencies. Praise God for His mercies and grace! And praise Him that He gives sight to the blind, for my heart was so dark that I could not see my own legalism.
This past year has been eventful in many other ways as well. One of my closest friends since early childhood, Lydia True, was married in March, and I had the privilege of serving as her maid-of-honor. I even bought my first pair of high-heels for the occasion. I turned 22 in April. Yikes! In May I finished my first year teaching math at Heritage Classical Study Center and my first full year tutoring students from Mill Creek High School. June and July were a busy whirlwind of conferences (see posts here, here, here, here, here, and here), VBS, several out-of-state trips, and catering a wedding for my friend Ashley. Ashley, who I've known since 1st grade(!), married Paul in late July. This summer I had the privilege of clearing out my grandfather's library, and between June and July I brought home 17 boxes of books! In early August I was able to meet Jessie in person, after almost a year of e-mailing and blogging! Also in August, I started my second year teaching at Heritage. In addition I picked up two mornings of babysitting and co-coordination of my church's nursery, just to keep busy ;). In December I was named Time magazine's Person of the Year. Despite my instant launch into stardom, I remain living quietly with my family in Buford, GA, and I've tried not to let all that fame go to my head. My paternal grandfather turned 80 in December as well, meaning that I now have 4 living grandparents, all in their 80's. Wow! I'd love to see the percentile on that. My family made a short trip up to Indiana/Kentucky/Tennessee in late December, to celebrate Christmas with family and friends, and we enjoyed having Boy with us for almost 2 weeks! And. . . *drumroll please*. . . she said yes!!!!! *throws confetti*
I love cryptic messages :-D.
May God abundantly bless each of you as we enter a new year, and may we seek first His Kingdom! We do not know what tomorrow holds, but we know who holds tomorrow. Hmm, <<--that's pretty catchy; someone should turn it into a Southern Gospel song ;-).
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12 comments:
Oh fun! I liked seeing your at-a-glance recap of 2006. But who said "yes?" And what did she say "yes" too? You can't leave us in the dark. The suspense will kill us!
Hope to hear soon. I have my guesses but I will reserve them for later. ;)
Have a fabulous 2007 with God's grace to lead you.
~Lydia
My dear, you forgot something...
*teehee*
I rather think I know what that's all about. I share in your rejoicing, to be sure.
In Christ.
Yes, Zan, you are right that Ben is getting married!!!! We're so excited, and we've been waiting for this :). I think Jessie's comment is purposely very cryptic, so I wouldn't bother trying to interpret it ;). That's a good guess, though, albeit wrong!
That's great that your sister got engaged too, Zan! Is that your sister who looks like Hannah? Ben and Stephanie are thinking a May wedding.
That's great, Zan :). Oh, and we want to see a picture of your wedding dress. Do you have a digital one you can e-mail me? Please?
Oooh I like your dress, Zan! It reminds me of my former roommate's wedding dress. That's cool that your sister gets to wear it. :-) My mom saved her wedding dress for me to wear, but I didn't fit. I was a little relieved because it was very out-of-date and I didn't care for it. :-)
I love the waist style and the overlay. That is such a pretty dress! I'd do the neckline a bit different, but other than that is absolutely gorgeous! If you can't get a file to send me, that's all right, Zan :). Thanks for the links!
Zan: to make a link you have to enclose it with an HTML tag.
Example:
Susan's blog
The code to make that is: (remove all the "_" to make it work)
<_a_href="http://susaneg.blogspot.com/"_>Susan's blog<_/a_>
I hope that makes sense!
Oops forgot something:
Inside the brackets < > you have to write:
a href="link"
(space between a and href)
And then you put your link text, and then to close the link you put inside two more brackets < >
/a
Sorry it's really hard to explain when I can't just write the code! Anyone who knows basic web design should know this, so just ask!!
Zan: Here is a web page that might be able to explain how to make clickable links better than I.
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