Isaiah 43:19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

2020 was the “Year of vision.” Everyone I know had “Vision” as their word for 2020. There was vision alright. The vision of things happening that we never thought possible. The vision that the earth was able to be shut down from one tiny virus. We were seeing things that we had only imagined in our wildest imagination or seen in the most insane movie plots. Suddenly, those things were being seen with our own eyes. It was a tough year. A seemingly lonely year.

2021 was the year of “Simple.” I was simplifying things. In life. In my mind. In my heart. The Lord was bringing me back to simplistic thinking. The simpleness of scripture. The simplicity of just loving spending time with Him. The simplicity of the peace he brings. He was showing me to depend on Him and nothing else – simple as it seems our human flesh can make it much harder than it looks.

2022 I did not receive a word at the beginning of the year. As a matter of fact I did not get it until well into 2022. When I finally received it the delay made sense. It was prune/tend. I am a person who likes order and control. LOL The Lord had me wait not so patiently on the word for 2022. (out of order and I definitely had no control over that) The effects of 2020 were still close in my mind and heart. Then He brought me back to the simplicity of scripture and a relationship with Him. This year He was pruning things (Fall/Winter season) – delicately trimming back dead things. In order to bear much fruit there has to be a pruning process to get rid of the old in order to let the new grow. He was tending the garden of peoples hearts, minds and lives and laying the groundwork for the harvest to come. I saw marriages, family, kids, jobs, possessions all being tended to in a deep way in order to make room for the new things.

2023 brings the hope of “expectancy.” The Lord said to me, “I have shown them what could be (2020). I have simplified their hearts (2021). I have tended the ground to be ripe for harvest (2022). Now I am ready to do a new thing to those who have been faithful and to those that have gone astray. I will bring the lost ones home. Now that the ground has been prepared I will turn the wilderness into a garden.”

2 corinthians 4:8
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

This year I am hopeful of all the new things to come and I will continue to enjoy the peace that surpasses all understanding in the midst of any circumstance because my hope is in the eternal.