Consider it JOY

2026 is a BIG year for me. This year, I will turn 40 and it also happens to mark 10 years of me following Jesus. It definitely feels important and like a stone stacking kind of moment. I have been reflecting on my life since surrendering it all to the Lord and even talking to my husband we both agree it feels like it was yesterday. It’s been a wild ride. There was so much darkness and brokenness in my past. There is such a clear dividing line between the “before” and the “after.” In the “after” it hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows, but I can sum up in one word what I have learned in 10 years of walking with Jesus. Faithful.

God is faithful. It’s not something He does, it’s who He is.

I’ve been reading in Joshua and in Job recently and it’s been a sweet reminder to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus, not my circumstances. Although this is a big marker year with decades, it’s still a blank canvas and anything can happen. I’ve learned a lot about expectations and am in the process of retraining my brain. Living in this broken world has trained me to expect the bottom to drop out – because a lot of the time it does.

Since walking with Jesus, He has shown me a better way: to expect Him to move in power because He is faithful. Although walking with Him doesn’t promise easy or for everything to go just the way I want it to, I have tasted and seen His faithfulness in every season. The good, the bad, the ugly.

God showed me that I too have been faithful. Even in our train wreck year of 2023, when the wheels fell off and it was blow after blow, I still turned to Him. I complained, I grumbled, I lamented. His grace was enough, and His power was made perfect in my weakness. To lament and complain, it’s ugly and doesn’t seem honoring, but if we are taking it to His feet, it honors Him. Those tears and tantrums are prayers. They aren’t lovely or beautiful, but they are authentic. This isn’t a free pass to be a whiny jerk; we would do better to have an attitude of gratitude, and the Bible speaks a lot about this! When we stay the course even in those times when it feels like there is nothing in it for us…that’s real faith.

These years really highlighted to me personally my sinful nature. (I know I’m talking about sin…clutch the pearls!) How I want comfort, ease, and what my knee-jerk reaction looks like when I don’t get that. It’s been yucky to see myself in this way. It’s been humbling. I’ve grown through it and am continually amazed by the way He still loves me. His love for me doesn’t ride on my performance. He doesn’t call me to be perfect – Jesus took care of that for me. He calls me to progress.

It feels like in many ways I have been in recovery mode since 2023 and now, what I am feeling most is hopeful. Something I know I can be hopeful for is to see His faithfulness revealed again and again.

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.