A Few of My Favorite Things

I hope you had a very Merry Christmas and you were able to take some moments to breathe and soak it all up.  We had such a blessed Christmas in many ways.  I hope you did as well.  Can you believe tomorrow we will begin a brand new year?

2016.  

I can hardly believe it.  Time flies faster now than it ever has before.  The days go quicker, the nights seem shorter.  So much has happened in such a short period of time.  

It's even crazier to me that 2016 will mark 4 official years of blogging for me.  Five years since I felt The Lord's nudge on my heart to begin writing again and give a voice of encouragement to women who need it.  I remember clicking publish on my first post.  It was scary and yet so exciting.  I was stepping out in faith, trusting God with one of my dreams.  It's so neat to see His hand traced throughout my dream of writing over the last few years. Some posts have been great, others not so great.  Some were written as reminders for myself, others as catalyst's for you. 

So I wanted to have a little fun today and share some of my favorite blog posts over the years with you.  

My post, The Stop Sign is still by far my highest viewed post.  It was my third blog post.  I can't speak to the flow or format of the post, because my skill level on that has greatly increased over the years, but I can still speak to the feelings behind the post.  I still struggle with the things I wrote about in this post.  Maybe it's been viewed so much because so many of you feel the same way and struggle with the same things.  It's one of my favorites because I can vividly remember that day and the exact feeling The Lord laid on my heart.  

My "after run glow"/ The Stop Sign

The story of my oldest daughter Brooke's birth is still one of my favorites.  In The Birth of a Fighter, I share the story of our miracle baby.  Brooke will be 3 next week.  Every now and then I'll go back and read this post.  It's such a sweet reminder to me of how we started and of God's faithfulness to us during that time.  

The Birth of a Fighter/Credit: Amanda Martinsen

After Brooke was a few months old, I wrote Sometimes It's the Little Things, a post about a health condition Brooke had when she was born, but we didn't realize it.  But the post wasn't as much about her health as it was a post about seeing the little things as blessings as well.  God is in the little things.  He still is.  I love that.

Sometimes It's the Little Things/Credit: Amanda Martinsen

Another reader favorite was a guest post by my friend Phyllis Watson.  God is Always On Time tells the story of her daughter Rebecca and son-in-law Chris' adoption of their son Sam.  The message of the post is so encouraging and their story is so precious.  It has been neat to see pictures of Sam now and see how he has grown, how their family has grown.  I just love this post and I would encourage anyone who is considering adoption or interested in adoption to read this one.  It's such an amazing story!

God is Always on Time/Credit: Rebecca Autry

Another favorite of mine was a post I wrote this year called To the Women Who Hold My Babies at Church.  It was a post dedicated to the sweet women who hold my own girls at our church, but so many of you expressed the same sentiment towards the nursery workers and children's church teachers in your own churches.  Again, thank you so much for your dedication to children.  It truly means the world and you are appreciated.  

And lastly, probably my favorite post of this year was a letter I wrote to my oldest daughter Brooke, called A Letter to My Strong-Willed Child.   It was real and honest and I wrote it from a place of parenting desperation.  Maybe some of you can relate to raising a strong-willed child.  I've learned it's not for sissy's.  Whew!  But one day, as I wrote in the post, God is going to use her in His brilliant way and time. I'm sure as she grows I will enjoy going back and reading this one.  Until then though, she's still making my prayer life strong.  

  

So there you have it!  Some of my favorite posts over the last four years.  I have really enjoyed going back and reading some of my earlier posts.  Sometimes I cringed and thought I cannot believe you wrote that!  But other times, I would see glimpses of my God-sized dream taking shape.  Moments of God's faithfulness and beauty.  Moments of struggle and moments of triumph.  I love it.  

So friend, I'm praying blessings on you for the upcoming year.  Let this be the year that God becomes bigger than you ever could have imagined Him to be.  May The Word come alive to you.  May you see things from a different perspective.  May you grow in Him.  

I'll see you in 2016 friends!