A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to 2015

2014 has been an adventure, to say the least!  The beginning could never have predicted the end!

My eldest graduated from high school and moved away to college.  After nearly three years of un or under employment, God opened the right door for us.  We moved our entire family from Texas to Arizona.  I fell into a writing opportunity for a little movie called God’s Not Dead, which has led to some other amazing prospects. And probably about 126 other things I could recount if I journaled.  But I don’t.  So there you have it.

“What’s so funny about that?’, you ask?

Somewhere in the past 10 years, I lost my way.  Lost myself.  Forgot who and whose I am.  I think maybe life does that to you over time.  I began to equate my self, my soul, with what I do…not who I am.  Consequently, when I no longer ‘was’, I had no idea who I ‘am’.  And it was a rough journey to struggle out from under that fallen brick wall – for me and for those around me.

And to be thoroughly honest, I’m still a little flattened.  But as I shake the dust off, tend the wounds left behind, and assess…I become so much more aware of how God – in the way only God does – has orchestrated every step to bring me to this very moment.

I still don’t understand all of 2014.  I haven’t yet discerned why it’s so hard to watch my boys grow up.  I’m puzzled at why the transition to a new church and a new state has seemed harder than I thought it would be when God is so very obviously ‘in it’.  I still don’t get HOAs or the allure of a gated community, though I completely understand it’s a lot nicer than a pool you have to mow!

I do know this: 2014 existed to get me to 2015.  And while I may not understand every step, I see so very clearly the hand of God.  And it’s funny….how in the midst of it, we might not even be sure God is noticing.  But He’s orchestrating every step.

I love it when He does that.  And I am excited to abandon pool-mowing for the foreseeable future!

White Noise & Resolutions

I decided a few years ago that resolutions always make me feel like a failure.  And I don’t deal well with that.  So I have cut them from my life.  I wish ice cream made me feel like a failure.

But I do always take a stock of the year as it passes.  And as I have contemplated this past year, I realized something.

Noise is noise.  Doesn’t matter how distinct it is.

It’s be a rough year on the Sutton front – a rough three or so, actually.  And as I thought through the past year, I wondered if I had been too internally focused.  I mused that maybe I was self-centered and whiny.  Perhaps I zeroed in on things that were temporal.

I’m sure all those things are true.  And a sadder truth — that might not change.  Especially since I don’t do resolutions.  :)

More poignant to me, however, was this thought….it’s been a really LOUD year.  God was silent much of this year.  And I was not.  I asked and pleaded and begged and questioned and reasoned and prayed and thought.  Jesus didn’t say much.  But friends and family counseled and encouraged and sympathized and helped and gave and prayed.  The Holy Spirit was a whisper and everything else was a blood-curdling scream.

It’s not that any of those things were bad or wrong or louder than He can be.  It was all just…white noise.  Static – when I wanted to tune in to the station.  And it’s amazing how loud white noise really is.

More than anything, I want to tune in this coming year.  Push beyond the white noise of this life – of ministry, of family, of circumstance – and re-know that joy of finally finding some FM digits that actually broadcast clearly and surprisingly after you’ve been driving through the desert with nothing but static.

Happy New Year – I hope you hit the right station on your dial.