12/27/2013

2014 Reflections

#reflections

One of my best adventures was…the week we found out rising Senior Cameron’s boarding school in Mississippi was closing. Chamberlain-Hunt had been open since 1876, and with 2 weeks to go before school started, there were no options available for him where we were living in Malaysia. We found a new school in 8 days. He was enrolled at The Kings Academy in Seymour, TN in less than 2 weeks.

I learned…How to publish a book on Amazon and other self-publishing avenues (I haven’t yet, but am well on my way in writing one). How to ship a dog and improved my cognitive ability with Luminosity!

I saw/knew God was doing something when I was healed from a chronic longtime illness.  I’ve not taken medication for it since September 2014. Then I prayed for a woman with a chronic illness at church and she told me the next week that she had been healed. The following week one of her friends/colleagues from work told me that everyone in the office had noticed the healing. I had to do counseling for Chinese pastors’ wives…in Chinese. I couldn’t understand what they were sharing, and yet the Holy Spirit gave me the words of encouragement to say to them. A very introverted older woman in church came to speak to me about God telling her to “come in from the cold’ and “come out of the cold” it was time to heal her protected heart, and she was to speak to me about it.

 A memorable gift was the arts group throwing a farewell party for me. Our welcome home party at Brett Place: filled our cupboards and condo with food and furniture. Keith & Judith Harrington’s downsizing provided some lovely furniture for our empty place!

Something I really enjoyed doing more of was... writing parodies to Disney songs. Gardening. Public speaking. Seeing my short term memory improve by using Lumosity.
I intentionally wrote letters of memories and blessing to those I was leaving behind in Singapore. Then did my best to meet personally with them for a meal or for coffee before our departure in November. I didn’t get to meet with everyone, but sure enjoyed the ones I did.

I was really brave when we made renovation decisions for our place in California from the other side of the planet. We wanted to enjoy the decision making process since we’d never, but it needed to get done, so we had to put a lot of faith in our contractor friend and just get it done, even if it wasn’t 100% what we’d have chosen had we more time and were face to face with the options!

My thoughts/prayers often turned to Syria, teaching the next Sacred Pathways lesson with women in Singapore, friends who fought and faced serious problems.

A Scripture passage that meant a lot to me was…”Give thanks in all circumstances.” 1 Thess 5.
And anything in Sarah Young’s JESUS CALLING devotional book.

I’m still trying to learn what God wants to teach me through: Tyler keeping his feelings to himself and not sharing with those who love him. When he asked to be taken out of Corinne’s book, and gave a window on to how badly he’d been hurt and how he interpreted the relationship, and how he’s moved on a harder more private person. That he cares deeply and faithfully for someone we’ve not met and he doesn’t talk to us about her.

The strangest thing that happened this year: My right baby toe has two scars souvenirs from being sliced 2 times in the same month by broken tiles in my bathroom at home. Well, and then there was our renters saying they’d cleaned out the place, but leaving stuff in cupboards, junk on the patio, socks and private items behind in the dresser drawers, and a car in the parking space!

The best word of advice or encouragement I can remember is…"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks continuously." 1 Thess 5


One of the happiest memories of 2014 I’d like to freeze in my mind…that our move to Malaysia for 2014 was confirmed over and over to have been the right thing to do. Our involvement at IBCBI (International Baptist Church Bukit Indah), and the Davis family who were planting the church, was a sweet mutually encouraging season for two families needing each other.

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