I’ve never been one of those gals who has a “word” chosen for each new year. But one day several months after a new year had started, a word hit me out of the blue.
EMBRACE
I am a widow and I need to embrace the title and stop hiding behind it.
I have six children I am raising as a single mom. I want to embrace this family life because it is where God has me right now.
I had some marriage difficulties during the last several years of my husband’s life. I want to embrace those struggles and not hide behind the shame and pain. I can empathize with others dealing with difficulties in marriage now, and can walk with a sister in the pain of lost dreams and hopes.
I recently went through the HUGE process of selling our home and finding something smaller, something less costly. I set the tone for my kids embracing this adventure so I needed to have a good attitude about it. It stinks. I never dreamed we would be in this situation but I will be giving my children a special gift if I can teach them to live within their own means. Not the means of “yesterday”. Not the means of “tomorrow”. The means for “today” need to be embraced. This house situation was probably the catalyst that brought about the word embrace. I found myself fighting the desire to accept this move. I believed God was leading me to downsize but He wasn’t making it easy! The house didn’t sell the first time we put it on the market, and showing a house several times a week with FIVE kids living in it was beyond hard! Keeping an immaculate show-ready home was NOT normal for us. It was exhausting for everyone. Tensions grew. Nerves were shot. Driving around with the nearly-100-lb dog and five kids while the house was being shown was stinky in many ways! This was where I was when the word embrace came to me. We are blessed with so much. And that “so much” was becoming a non-blessing! We were tired of the “blessings” we had to straighten and clean daily. In the midst of my exhaustion, God told me to embrace the story He has written for me right now.
And lastly I am embracing my single-ness. I must stop looking for the “white horse rescue”. God is taking care of me – even when I am lonely, overwhelmed, or sad. God knows and sees me. I must Embrace His love for me – that it is ENOUGH. I have a necklace with a heart I had engraved with the words “God Alone”. It is my constant reminder that God truly is ENOUGH.
A verse that has been especially meaningful to me is:
Psalm 46:5 “God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns.
Morning dawns each day, doesn’t it? And with dawn, comes the same struggles with new ones sprinkled in. Single parenting is So. Very. Hard. It is 24-hours-a-day hard. It is 7-days-a-week hard. But God will help her when morning dawns. That is a promise I cling to each day.
What do you need to embrace today?
I hope my story encourages you to embrace your life – not because of what YOU can do on your own or because of how great and wonderful YOU are! Embrace your life because of who HE is and what HE did to save you. God loves YOU. God is at work behind the scenes. And His time-line is not the same as our time-line. Trust Him. He saved your soul. He can be trusted. Embrace that today.
About Elizabeth Dyer
Elizabeth Kay Dyer is a contributing writer and speaker for aNew Season Ministries. She raises six children (named after biblical characters) in the Oklahoma City area, along with a large black dog (named after a grandfather), a noisy cat (named after a race car driver), and two guinea pigs (named after yummy snacks). She was widowed in 2012 and is learning to navigate life as a solo parent. You can follow her on her ministry page at www.anewseason.net or her personal blog at www.dyerhalfdozen.wordpress.com Elizabeth is eager to share her story at conferences and retreats.