“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” – Matthew 11:28-29
2023: A Year of Pruning
During the year I held on to Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” But I never expected part of God’s handiwork to be more of sloughing off rather than building me up.
To Start With…
The start of 2023 found me as a facilitator for a group of fourteen women—all but one who were older than me! I felt helpless to advise anyone in difficult life struggles—ailing parents, cancer scares, health issues, even the sudden death of a beloved son—and knelt at the throne of God out of necessity. In August the Bible Study homeschool group opened back up and I was once again with kids, but I still turn to prayer for confidence and strength.
God, who fashioned me, allowed me to feel insecure so that He could reveal my most powerful resource: Himself!
The Most Painful Pruning
In the summer, I went through the most painful moment of my life when we decided to leave University Bible Fellowship and become members of Park Community Church. UBF is where I met and decided to follow Christ. With thanks to God I remember how Dr. Paul Koh loved me and was patient with me until I could receive God’s initiating, never-ending love (1Jn 4:10) personally for myself. I still favor one-to-one Bible study and testimony writing as the most efficient disciple-making tools but am thankful for the freedom to be myself at Park as the zany homeschooling-novelist. Even after six months, I still miss UBF, but even in this heartache, I am deciding to trust that I am God’s handiwork—and choose to believe that God is still working in me.
Park Church has also been good for my husband’s spirit too. Although he had confessed Christ as his Lord and Savior in 1997, at the encouragement of Park leadership, he was baptized and made his faith public! He was surrounded by men of God who welcome and love him as he was dunked in Lake Michigan in July. We pray that this may be a new stage in his life to know with certainty he is the leader for our family and is God’s handiwork, created to do good works, which God is lovingly revealing him how to do.
Give Up, Take On
Also in the summer, God nudged me to drop several duties in our homeschool community (for a girl who eats up praise for breakfast, giving up any project is challenging!) in order to be the afternoon tutor for the Essentials program. By the second week, my brain felt like it had been in a blender and the past four months has been even more confusing and complex. In this baffled state (verbs have how many purposes?!), God has given me an appreciation for how my eleven-year-old son’s puzzle-solving brain works … and how to teach my eight-year-old these difficult concepts by using his amazing gift of storytelling. After all, who better to learn the nuisances of language and communication than Jesus Christ, who is the Word!
Since I’m Hard of Hearing, Apparently…
Most recently, God has stopped me in my tracks so that His voice was all I could hear. Despite striving all summer to change my work schedule, I haven’t been able to attend church since August and had to ask God for help. More than once I gave up writing fiction only to be inspired by Scripture. The Christmas novella, “Tied with a Bow” is a love story about surrendering dreams and seizing God as their greatest Desire—and this has become the story of my life too.
And to Top it Off…
At the end of this year, my beloved aunt (my dad’s older sister) passed away. It was a sweet time to spend with cousins, but also a reminder that we only get one life on earth. How we use it counts. My Creator, who had woven me in my mother’s womb and has made me a new creation through faith in Christ, is carefully and lovingly working in my life. It’s been a year of painful pruning, but God’s promise is to make me even more fruitful. With this hope, I step into the new year.
2024: The Year to Rest
Throughout the year, I felt God’s gentle encouragement to rest. After all, God commanded us to stop (Sabbath) regular work, and God Himself—who has no need for sleep—blessed the final day of creation because “by the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing.” (If anyone should be allowed another several moments to tweak His creation, it should be the One who created the heavens and the earth!)
For this new year, I have chosen Matthew 11:29 to remind me to come alongside Jesus and accept His invitation to find rest. The verse reads, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
God created us to work hard, but to do so He knows we need enough physical sleep and soul-refreshment. I’ve been lacking both for a long time.
Most importantly, I am seeking God’s direction about my work schedule to be able to sleep at night (I currently work 10pm to 7am) and to attend church every Sunday (with an attitude to serve the King). But God is teaching me I also need to make changes now about how I react to stress, including carving out time to breathe deeply and to talk to Him more often.
Attending church is helpful but finding rest in God (even if physical rest is not possible) is critical.
There are a lot of opportunities to serve at Park Church—too many opportunities to choose from. I pray to find where I fit in and to fully take Jesus’ yoke upon myself.
Also, this year I’m more adamant than ever to find other Christian authors and learn how my gift can benefit His kingdom. I also pray to use my gifts more at home to support the kids’ school studies and my husband’s work.
Lastly, I pray to invest in God’s word more in the new year. In the past few months through the study at CBS of 1&2Samuel, I have been impressed by David’s honesty and absolute confidence in God’s grace when he made mistakes. My personal decision this year is to read through the Psalms and learn how to trust God as David did, the Shepherd King, the man after God’s own heart. When I come to God as I am, I pray to meet Jesus, who is gentle and humble, and finally find rest.
May God glorify His name in 2024!
One Word: Take Christ’s yoke and find rest.
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