We hope to see you on Monday night for the first Connecting Point event of 2014! 

*If you will need childcare, don't forget to contact the Women's Life Office at 919-761-2340 by 4pm on Friday, January 31.*

Reblogged from "girltalk" a blog by Carolyn Mahaney
by Nicole Whitacre

Each year we make New Year's resolutions for things we want to change, but we also have New Year's hopes for things we can't change, but wish we could. We long to receive certain desires of our heart that seem elusively out of reach. And maybe, just maybe, we will see those hopes fulfilled this year.
When I was single, I hoped for a husband. Maybe this year, he will come. I imagined myself married by the following New Year, or at least engaged. Maybe the New Year was holding my future husband in the wings.

God eventually gave me an amazing husband, but new hopes still sprang up with each New Year's Day. When we lived in a teeny apartment, I wanted to move to a bigger place. When I experienced secondary infertility, I wanted to have another child. Maybe this year.

I'm sure you have hopes for this year. They are probably whatever you are thinking about right now. But in her book, Keep A Quiet Heart, Elisabeth Elliot encourages us to focus on the most important of New Year's hopes:

“Will the young woman find a mate? Will the couple have a child? Maybe this year will be the year of desire fulfilled. Perhaps, on the other hand, it will be the year of desire radically transformed, the year of finding, as we have perhaps not yet truly found, Christ to be the All-Sufficient One, Christ the ‘deep sweet well of Love’” (page 49, emphasis mine).

This year, let us ask God to dissolve all our hopes (however good they may be!) into a single hope: to know Christ and to be found in Him. May this be a year of desire radically transformed, a deeper, truer, knowing of Christ as our All-Sufficient One.

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:7-8a).

Every day I am reminded to be joyful, reminded by Scripture, my husband, the people around me, and my precious (I’m a little biased) baby girl. Life has drastically changed since adding HG to our family.  I worry a lot.  I get stressed out about things that I would have never even thought to stress out about a few months ago.  My days are full of changing diapers, feeding, and cleaning. At times it’s hard to find joy with my monotonous routine. 

The Lord is gently reminding me that joy is not something I produce, but comes from Him. It is the joy that I have through Christ that overflows into my own life. Looking back at the first month of HG’s life, I see how the Lord has provided a joyful heart for me even when I didn’t realize it. You see, when a baby is crying wailing throughout the night and you have done everything in your power to comfort her, you do not have joy. There is no way you can produce any kind of joy at 2 a.m. after a week of sleepless nights. It is at those breaking points that I have to ask the Lord to provide me with a joyful heart. I want to be patient and love my newborn well, but my selfish heart fights being joyful in those times.

I can distinctly remember one night where I was up with HG, and we were both crying and having trouble with feeding. I remember holding her to my chest and telling her the story of Jesus. I started from Genesis and went through the promise of Jesus returning one day. There was stillness. No crying (from her or me), just a peace. In that moment I was greatly reminded of the joy that Jesus brings us, and of the hope that He gives to me, a lowly sinner, every day. A rush of emotions hit me, possibly some from post-pregnancy wacked up hormones, but the emotion of thankfulness of the Gospel hit me so hard that tears began to fall down my face. 

In Jerry Bridges book, The Discipline of Grace, he talks about how we must preach the Gospel to ourselves daily, not just on Sundays and at small group, but daily. When we wake up in the morning, change diapers, study for a test, cook dinner, and finally lay our heads down at night, we should mediate on the Gospel. Preaching the gospel to ourselves daily reminds us of the joy that we have in Christ. I pray that I would preach the Gospel to myself daily, because goodness gracious I need it! 

Joyful reminders hit me from all over; from a little smiling face, to my wonderful husband, to our supportive family and friends, but most importantly, from the Gospel.  

Laura and her husband L moved to Wake Forest in May 2010.  Once they arrived at SEBTS, God directed their hearts to overseas missions.  L and Laura are in the 2+2 program and will be deploying in 2013.  This past September they welcomed HG to their family.  Laura is a member of The Summit and works part-time in the Women’s Life Office.