I told y’all Johnny was an artist!

If I turned the last year of my life into a book I think the title would be, The Season of Lancing, because that has been what it has felt like.  A season of God saying you have this giant infected boil inside of you and you don't even really see it, but I am the good physician, so I'm going to hold you down and I am going to grab the scalpel and as gently as I can I am going to cut into this.  And you're going to feel the hurt and you're going to question why a good father would hold you down and cut you but I know that we've got to let this drain out for healing to come.  It's going to hurt like hell and you're going to see this as wounding you but we've got to open this up and let the infection seep out.  If we don't this infection is going to seep into your brain and your heart and your bones.  It will kill you.  

That in a nutshell has been my journey this year.  God revealing and letting my heart be cut open to expose what needed to drain out so we could irrigate and bandage back up.  Been REAL fun over here y'all.  In the process I have found that healing isn't linear.  It ebbs and it flows.  But oh my, has there been healing.  There will always be a scar from this phase in my journey.  A mark on my heart.  Part of my healing has led me to make a lasting mark.  I've needed to look down and see a tangible reminder of this season that I've walked through.  

The wildflowers because wildflowers have always been a symbol of God's control and goodness for me. Standing in the middle of a desert only God can plant, grow and sustain a wildflower.  In the driest season there is growth and beauty to be found if you search.  Plus wildflowers are here today and gone tomorrow.  I need the reminder that life on this side is fleeting.  It gives me the perspective I need to be intentional in the living here.  I can't cling to this life for myself or even for my kids.  So we hold out our days as an offering to the Lord and say do what you will with the days you've given us.  And when we breath our last, we'll no longer be weary foreigners traveling through but we'll be finally home.  Kylie Jo's is the Poppy and Lila's is the wild rose but I'm saving the reason for those flowers for them.

The rose with spots on it because those are actually the freckles on Dustin’s face.  They remind me of the stars in the sky that were perfectly created and dreamed up by God just like my boy. The rose opening up more and more always revealing more beauty but also knowing with the beauty comes the thorn.  And the thorn isn’t bad….the weakness, the hardship is what in its backwards way glorifies God.

Remember because prone to wonder Lord I feel it prone to leave the one I love.  I think of the Israelites a lot as they began their journey to the promised land after walking through the parted sea.  God had delivered them from a life of oppression and He had promised them an abundant land rich with resources.  They witnessed a supernatural moment that should have just ingrained in them a deep everlasting trust in the Lord but they passed by those walls of water and forgot what the Lord had done.  I never want to forget what God has done in my life.  For not a second do I want to pull an Israelite!  I don't want to be walking in the "desert" and complaining about how I'm going to get a drink of water when five minutes ago I witnessed God perform a miracle.  I want to cling to the fact that no matter where we find ourselves, I can trust Him because He is faithful.  He always makes a way when there seems like there is no way at all.  The way He makes may not be the way that we would have chosen and it may not at all be a way that we like but we have to trust that His ways are always better than our own.  Because quite frankly they are!  

The single star because I painted a bunch of those on Dustin's ceiling.  They remind me of what the star leading the wise men to Jesus would have looked like.  The way Dustin gazes on his stars is the way that I want to live my life too.  Fix my eyes upon Jesus and follow Him wherever he asks me to go, stay where I'm sent and give what I've got.  

Let the healing carry on..........