2021 Recap | The Year of Promise and Surrender

My phrase for this year was “The Year of Promise and Surrender”. I admit, when God laid that phrase on my heart last December, I had no idea what it meant or how God could possibly orchestrate this year to play out in anyway that could be tied to that ‘phrase’.

…. And boy, was I wrong! There have been many, many little moments this year that have fit perfectly – and some pretty big things, too.

This year started off with us knee-deep in foster care licensing. We were completing our home study, waiting for our fingerprinting to come back, and sitting through virtual training three days a week. In the beginning of March, we were FINALLY licensed to foster after several months of the intensive licensing process. Walking in obedience with God, and pursuing foster care, was a big act of surrender for us. For over 4 years we’ve battled infertility, and to totally switch gears and steer away from biological children and towards something different – that was total surrender. Total surrender of our plans and how we saw in our minds our family growing. As the months flew by, and the amount of calls grew to just a few, we had no placements.

And in the end, before closing our license, we never once accepted a placement or had any babies in our home – And while you may look at our entire foster care journey and think, “okay, I see the surrender, but what about the promise?” – the promise from the beginning was never that we would have babies in our home, have placements, nothing like that – the promise was that when we walked in obedience with God, He would be with us through it all. He would never leave us. He would work all things for our ultimate good, and most importantly for His glory. And that’s EXACTLY what He did with our foster care journey. It was a beautiful representation of promise and surrender. And while it didn’t end in the way we ever expected, and certainly didn’t plan, God is using that season for good.

Fast forward a few months, in the end of June, and we couldn’t stop thinking about selling our house. I talk more in depth about the “why” behind selling our dream home in previous blog post (you can read that post here). Once again, God was calling us to surrender. Surrender the home that He had given us just two years before, a home that we had made so many memories in and never planned on selling. But God had a different plan – a plan to finally bring us to the place of being 100% debt free – but we had to surrender.

We listed our house in the beginning of July, and after many set-backs (none on our part), we finally closed in the end of October – and just a week after closing, we closed on ANOTHER HOUSE, but this one purchased completely, 100% in cash (“The Yellow House”)! If we hadn’t surrendered our plans and dream home to God, we would never be where we are now – 100% debt free and living mortgage-free. He walked with us through the crazy, exhausting season of home selling and home buying – never leaving our side, and being glorified through it all.

Our foster care journey, debt free journey and the process of selling our first home and buying our second has been nothing short of a miracle. We have surrendered much, and God has been with us through everything. There are many more moments this year that fit perfectly into ‘promise & surrender’, too many to count and share, but He has been so good to us through it all.

This year has truly been been nothing we could have ever expected or planned, but God walked with us through every moment and every season. This year was truly a year of promise and surrender – and looking forward to 2022 with great expectation (and I’ll be sharing my “phrase” for this next year soon!).