I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward. (Charlotte Bronte)

I think what holds people down, what keeps people from achieving anything in life is their inability to look upward…instead there is a natural human tendency to look backwards or forward. My thinking and what I’d like to share with you is, “I can whine about how tough things are, or I can celebrate every time I have a victory.” Don’t you think celebrating sounds like more fun? I’ve learned that that looking for the best is more fun. Ironically I may have been my most hopeful when I was going through major drama in my life like the premature birth of my son and his subsequent hospitalizations, the up and down life I lead as a parent of a medically fragile child, the time when I almost lost my marriage due to the incredibly dark place men retire to when going through major life drama with their children (documented and statistically proven). In the midst of all that,  I believed that I would triumph, and I did. No, I don’t always come out a winner in life as you already know since my last dream didn’t work out the way I had hoped, but I know I stand a better chance of being a winner if I believe I can win going in. The only way to keep our hope alive is to keep looking upward to God, believing that his Jeremiah 29:11 promise is for us and is and will always be operational in our lives.

I had recently posted that 2008 was a year of new beginnings, will it still is, even if what I thought I would be beginning was different! My husband and I found are looking for a church that we believe will be our resting place for now. After three years as church planters, seventeen years of ministry in various capacities, it was good to be ministered to and not be doing the main leaders but just helpers. Thank God we already know that there is no perfect church but we looked up to God in hopes that He would lead us to a place that satisfies our desire for a great worship experience while being close to home. 2008 is still young so we continue to look upward.