Our 2014 Word of the Year

2013 was all about TRUSTING the Lord.

Let me show you how we got there...

On January 1, 2013, Jimmy and I celebrated New Years Day with our friends the Shuttlesworths at their lake house at Canyon Lake. It was a wonderful getaway from life in Dallas, and we were honored to have been invited for the holiday. After breakfast, Jimmy and I decided to hop in the car and head back to Dallas due to having to work the next day.

Since Canyon Lake was about five hours away from Dallas, we were geared up to make the trek back home. Ten minutes after hitting the road, our car decided to stop moving. The more Jimmy pressed the gas, the more we felt like something was terribly wrong with the engine. 

Seeing that it was New Years Day and every auto body shop was closed in our 20 mile radius, we decided to call a tow truck and be taken to a place about 25 miles away to be worked on the next day. During those three hours of waiting for the tow truck, a sweet couple we had met earlier in the week staying at the Shuttlesworths drove past, saw us, turned around and asked if we were alright. By this time I had been crying (because girls have that right when the car breaks down...) and we told them that something was terribly wrong with the engine. They were so sweet and let us sit in their warm car as we waited for the tow truck. Jimmy and the nice gentleman chatted outside while looking at the engine, and I was blubbering to the sweet woman (I seriously couldn't stop crying). 

Eventually, the tow truck came, we thanked the nice couple and waved goodbye, rode with the tow truck driver to the shop, had our dear friend Oliver pick us up and were driven back to the lake house to stay put another day until our car was fixed. Little did I know the nice gentleman had secretly given Jimmy cash to help cover the tow truck costs. What a blessing! ALSO - throughout this car saga, we found a $100 dollar bill in my purse. We don't know who put it in or WHEN they did, but we see it as a anonymous gift from the Lord to help cover car costs...Whoever that person was at the time, Thank You for helping provide!

To make a very long story short, we eventually made it home to Dallas after being towed two more times along this trip since one of our gaskets kept on blowing out. It was a hard, hard day, but somehow we made it home by borrowing my brother's truck while my parents had our car fixed at their shop close to home. Luckily we were close enough to Waco the last time it broke down to have my dad come meet me and help assess the engine situation! 

Why do I tell you this long story? Because we know God was teaching us to TRUST him. 2013 was about learning how to trust our sovereign Lord when the future was unclear. The verse we kept on writing on our chalkboard was "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6 

So, as this 2014 year is already one month down, Jimmy and I have thought hard about what our word may be this year. Responsibility continues to come up in our conversations...so I believe the Lord is teaching us how to be responsible this year. Whether it's our finances, health, relationships, work/school efforts, etc., we both feel that this year's area of improvement is in a much more practical light. We're called to be good stewards of what He has given us.

Although it's overdue, let's raise a glass and say "Happy New Year!" Who knows what the Lord will teach you in the months ahead. Isn't life exciting?

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

Romans 12:6-8

In Him,
The Millers