New Year 2016

​It's now February and here I am catching up with some new year encouragement. 2016 will be a year of restoration and more interestingly, refurbishment. What does the word mean? Restoring something to its former beauty and perhaps adding something of a new design or fresh feautures.

In my faith in God, these are also words I am hearing personally through my home Church, Southend Christian Fellowship. Words of newness, freshness, a new season, fresh annointing. And if you don't know God as I do, maybe now is the time to find out!

In my personal journey, life has been somewhat of a struggle with all the problems we have faced with my nearly 2 year old son. After all the stress of hospitals, tube feeding, waiting nearly a year for a diagnosis, let alone all the other stuff that I could get the violins out for! It finally took a toll on my mental health. I crashed badly over Christmas. I think I had managed to keep going for so long until my body finally said, 'wait, we need to process this!'.

I was exhausted and suffered a deep depression.
I was in tears thinking about the absolute crap my son has had to put up with. The nose feeding tube, the hospital stays, the stomach feeding tube and so forth. The horrible way we were judged as first time parents as if it was always a feeding issue and we were just doing it wrong! Or even as if it was just Eli being awkward. The fact of being judged so far that, as parents, we couldn't be trusted to know what our son could and could not cope with! The anger, the resentment, the pain. I still need to work on letting it go.

In which case it is very refreshing for me to know that this year is one of restoration. I took the decision to give up work. Not only for my health, but after so long, it was about time I gave in to this season of being a devoted Mum. I have really struggled to adapt to the change having a child brings. So it is with great joy I get to wipe the slate clean, focus on my son and step into my calling. I have heard so many times now how we are chosen as parents. God has given me a gift, He has chosen to bless me with a beautiful, cheeky, funny little boy. What am I waiting for?

Here's a link to an article regarding the prefix 're' being spoken over 2016 as a prophetic word from Father God:

http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/54185-prophecy-2016-will-be-the-year-of-the-re