The top of my stairs thus far....

Today my little email reminder to spend time with God was titled "A Place of Thus Far".  

Their have been so many stairs that I have treaded over the course this faith walk that began one evening at that bible study.  Some of the stairs have brought me tremendous joy and other have brought pain that I hadn't planned on.  Each step has not always prompted me to be thankful, lots of the stairs stretched me more that I would have ever imagined.  Today I choose to be thankful for those stairs even though my thus far is not exactly where I expected to be...  I know I'm going to miss some of the stairs, but here goes!

1. The invitation that helped God find me
2. Great friends that supported me and helped me grow as a new believer
3. The love of my life, Matthew
4. A house that we rented for less than our current car payment
5. Building our first home together in our home town
6. God's protection when our Meredith arrived 5 weeks early
7. For our healthy baby boy who was late and 9lbs 6 oz
8. The hedge of protection God placed around Ethan with his numerous food allergies
9. Loosing Matt's Dad, who was also a Dad to me
10. A church family that really was and still is our family
11. Matt's calling to become a Nurse Anesthetist 
12. Major surgery while our house was for sale and taking care of two small kids
13. The house we built that is no longer our home
14. Our new home and all the work that it needed
15. Learning to depend more on one another because we were in a new place
16. Finding a new church
17. Having another surgery
18. Balancing everything while Matt went to school full time and studied to the wee hours
19. Loosing my Dad 
20. Job offers
21. A little cottage in Ocean Grove
22. Matt's new job
23. Kids that are really wonderful and crazy all at the same time
24. A really loving husband
25. Still finding my place in God's plan
26. Friends that come and go
27. God's continued provision

I know I've missed a lot...life has had its up and downs, but through it all He has blessed me tremendously. Even when that stair didn't feel like a blessing at all.   Each stair has brought me closer to God even if things didn't turn out the way I had planned.  

Our physical place is not where we had expected to be, but I am no longer going to let that hold me back from the "thus far" God has planned for me.