2008 - Year of the Onion

I wish I can say 2008 was awesome for me...well, in a way it was. It's good to look back and see what I've gone through and what prayers been answered. Looking back, I've seen received blessings, missed opportunities, painful lessons (too many of those), and finally doing what the Lord has been telling me to do: resting. It's been the Year of the Onion. I'm the onion, and God has been peeling my layers back. It doesn't tickle. No wonder when you cut through an onion tears are bound that follow. It not only stinks, it also hurts.

2008 has been my transitional year. After traveling for a year and a half, going from to city every 3 months, and then to stop in one place "permanently" has not been an easy task. In November, last year, I took a permanent staff position in Austin, but my mind wanted to gear up for the next city, and had a problem listening to God speaking to my heart to stay in Austin, and it's been a tug-of-war between mind and heart to stay in one place for the Lord. With that, I lost sight of why I was to stop. It wasn't to serve, but to rest. He whispered it to me to rest since I returned to Austin last August ('07), but I didn't really listen very well until in May when I went to my church's Women's Retreat, He made it very clear to me to rest, and how to do that. Since then, I've stepped down from ministries I've been involved with, but still available to volunteer for little things around the church office, when asked. Since then, the Lord has been peeling away LAYERS of barriers, obstacles, and other issues of my life that I've apparently been hiding behind for years, to reveal the real Leona that He sees (work still in progress).

It goes to shows that no matter how "strong" you think you are in Christ, you're not. I'm not perfect. 2008 has been refreshing and revealing that I wouldn't change my experiences if I had a choice to go back. Maybe start resting earlier in the year....like August '07. Can't wait to see what's in stored for in 2009.

The best blessings I received in 2008 are my amazing Austin friends that started popping up in my life since May. Laughter is the best medicine, and they've kept me laughing since I met them. Thank you, ladies (and gentlemen). You know who you are, and I praise God for you in my life.

"I have refined you,
though not as silver;
I have tested you in the
furnace of affliction."
Isaiah 48:10

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while
you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.
These have come so that your faith
-- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire --
may be proved genuine and may result
in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."
1 Peter 1:6-7