Erick wrote this to me just a week after my graduation day and the day we officially became a couple:
"It's nice being on this side of the year with you, Amy."It's amazing to me to think that it has been one year since this whole journey began. One whole year! And yet, I also know that with our God, this has been something that was already carefully orchestrated before time even began. Each new day that I wake up on this side of the waiting, when I think about where we were, what thoughts, emotions, prayers, cries we had to our Father just a year ago, I am reminded of His faithfulness. There was never a thought or cry unmet, never a prayer left unanswered. Always promise after promise. He has been so faithful to us and He promises to continue to be.
Something Erick told me about God's faithfulness- acknowledging His faithfulness in our lives is not only an opportunity for us to be thankful, but also an opportunity for us to be able to count on His faithfulness again in our lives. His faithfulness points us toward future faithfulness, future grace.
There is joy in expectancy.
Something that God was really teaching me and Erick during the past year is that there is joy in expectancy, there is joy in the waiting. It was so easy for us to believe that joy would come only at the end of the year and focus on the momentary affliction that seemed to rob us of that joy. Erick wrote me a letter during a more difficult time toward the end of the year, sharing with me what God was showing him when he found it hard to cultivate joy in the midst of hardship:
"I was praying more on this question today and God reminded me of some key truth (John 14:26) that I wanted to share with you, that we may rejoice in this time that can be trialsome. A way to joy within the trial itself is to fix our eyes on Jesus. He is beautiful and He is sovereign and He has conquered sin and death. Therefore, when we look at Him, we can endure whatever cross He would have us bear because we know that the work He is doing in us, in every circumstance including difficult ones, is bearing glorious fruit that far outweighs this momentary, light affliction (Hebrews 12:2)."During this time God was reminding us and encouraging us with Philippians 4:4 and Hebrews 12, showing us that the waiting period is one that can be filled with joy when our eyes are fixed on Jesus. And this is our joy as Christians as well, while we walk this journey of life. What hope we have and what joy we can claim when our eyes are on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith! His Kingdom is both here and not yet! My friend, MaryAnn, wrote this in her blog around the same time last year:
"I think this is what (should) make the gospel so enticing. In the gospel, we are promised an inheritance beyond comparison and guaranteed a future full of good and wonderful things. We have Hope like no other...With Christ, I really can keep on living with a constant, continual, everyday hopeful, expectant anticipation of a miracle."Thank you, God, for the strength, the grace and the promises You gave us to lead us through a whole year as single individuals seeking after Your will and glory. I really love the way Erick put it: even though we are no longer waiting to date, we are now seeking God together to wait on greater things to come. A new kind of wait :) Thank you, Father, for the opportunity to wait together in a new segment of this journey. May this relationship be used for Your glory and may it continue to point us, as it has so far, to understanding more and more of Your intimate love for us. Help us to wait with joy, for us and for Your Kingdom come.
His faithfulness today points us to future faithfulness, future grace!