I woke up this morning feeling a little different. Maybe it's the fact that I get to start out a new year with no expectations. Or the simple peace knowing that I am completely in God's plan right now. Either way, I know this year will be the best year of my life. For the past four years, I have been stripped of a lot of security and felt, most of the time, like I was walking on egg shells. Not this year. This year, I will walk confidently knowing that God will reveal Himself to me in ways I never dreamed. For His ways are not our ways...they are so much better! So many times in my life I have settled for less than God's best. Why? Why would I want to settle? Well, simply put, I think it's because it was comfortable. I knew what was going to happen. There were no surprises (or at least I thought). I am so so thankful that God takes away. He has taken away the roller coaster that I have been riding for years. He has taken away dishonesty, unfaithfulness, and so many things that didn't bring life and encouragement into my life. I'm sure you are saying "Well yea, Carrie, those are all things that we want out of our life so that God can replace them with healing and encouragement. Why wouldn't you thank Him for that?" Well friends, in order to take all that away He had to also take away something that I tend to cling to: my comfort. And for me, this is a really big deal and took me months to accept. I don't like change. I love for things to be clean and organized. I'm a rule follower. I'm a fixer and solver. So to change this box that I like to live in, was extremely difficult. But I love that I can say "Thank You Lord" for doing that. God is saving me from a life full of anxiety so that He can provide a life full of peace. I wish there were a better way to say thanks. I know now that God really does want the best for me and He will give and take away to make this happen.

On a different note, there are so many big things happening right now that I don't even know where to begin. I know I am a horrible blogger, but I think over the next few months I will be able to slowly reveal what God is doing. It's the most awesome, shocking thing I have experienced in a long time. I think God often laughs at me and my plans and says, What are you waiting for? "Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness" (Isaiah 43). God is beginning something that if you would have told me this time last year I would be doing, I would have probably laughed. But how BIG is our God? Why do we so many times put restraints on Him, not expecting Him to do miracles? Let me end this with saying.....what He is doing is a miracle. No doubt in my mind.