My Year of Faith: Day 291

I can remember so many nights this year when I felt like life would never get any better. I didn't feel like that just once, I felt it more and more as the months kept unraveling before us. My heart knew that it would get better eventually, but my mind couldn't always catch up to that, especially when things would get worse. It was tough having faith that things could be right for us again, and then October happened. This month has been kinder to us than all the others. Things are lining up for Mark, slowly but steadily, I think we are going to be okay! We are going to keep struggling a little longer, but not on the same level as it has been. We can see the horizon instead of the darkness. I find a lot of joy in having this reassurance that we are going to make our way out of the ditch. Even little steps are progress, right?

For me, I have has a great two weeks full of promises and joy. I got an email that I will be designing a logo for a quaint restaurant in Hawaii. Then I was asked to be a blogger for OC Family. Right about the same time I decided to completely revamp my Amanda's Favs blog and make it into a newer version of myself. Life has been exciting for me and I can feel the energy of our lives changing right before my eyes. Just little changes, but they feel big when you have had so little for so long. I can even see little ways that our family life has changed over this year, and it amazes me how so much good can come out of such a dark time.

The sermon at church last Sunday was about the laws of sowing and reaping. I can't explain how much I connected to this message. Basically Pastor Rick spoke about how you must plant seeds (your dreams, kindness, love, faith, etc) and because everything starts as a seed, nothing will happen unless you plant them. Planting a seed is an act of faith. You may feel like you are waiting on God or the perfect time to plant, but He is most likely waiting on you. Whatever you sow, is what you will reap. Whatever you give out, good or bad, is what you will get back. If you sow gossip and negativity, expect to get much more back. But if you sow good things, you can expect to reap much more loveliness. You will always reap in a different season than you sow because God is working in your life and it takes time to grow in wisdom. He also said to reap the harvest you must be patient and never give up. This has been our life this year. While we were struggling we were also sowing. We were sowing seeds of hope, seeds of faith and seeds of love. I wanted those seeds to harvest right away (and in the form of money), but they didn't. Other people planted seeds in our lives, more than I could ever count and we were richly blessed because of them, but we were still in the dark waiting. Some of those seeds we sowed are starting to harvest. Our life is starting to bloom again. Just a little bit each day, but when you have had so little, even the tiniest harvest is as big as a mountain.

"So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up." -Galatians 6:9 (NLT)

It's a promise. I'm ready to spend my life sowing seeds.