Don't Hold Back {Messy Monday}

Try this equation:

>62 years of combined parental experience + 24 hours x 4 children =

Naptime.

Back home today and ready to write up just the tiniest of Messy Mondays.

I'll spare you the details, but Christmas week was a sick one. One by one, each family member succumbed to the stomach flu until we could do little more than just languish on the couch.

And yet, it didn't ruin Christmas. Sure, Christmas Eve and Day involved the same nastiness, but for all the Christmas movies we watched where the very existence of Christmas was in peril, it came and went like it usually does. Regardless of our mental haze, God still delivered:)

I hope the same was true for you- minus the bathroom time.

We're embarking on 2014 in a couple days and I'm still looking for my word of the year. It's a word to help me focus- a lens through which I see my relationship with God, others, and this blog.

Messy could be it, but I'm looking more on the hopeful side of things. I'm hopeful for more than just a healthy year. I'm hopeful that, in the midst of the mess, God gives me eyes to see His hand. His love. His deliverance. 

More than ever, staring in the face of an unknown year leads me to look past the day-to-day messes as well as the major world messes, and see a God who always delivers.

A God who doesn't ever hold back. A God who goes the distance day in and day out, just so that we can continue to discover just how much He loves us.

I pray for you today- that you get the rest you need. That you remember the ways the Lord has delivered this past year, and that you trust Him to deliver in the year to come. It means more than wishing you health, wealth, and happiness- it means praying that God works through every single thing, including the messes, to display His perfect and sufficient love in your life. That is my prayer for you. God bless you, friends.