Summer of 7 is officially over and I’ll be honest–I believed there was a good chance Summer of 7 was going to include a lot of suffering with minimal immediate impact and no long-term impact. But, looking back over June and July I see God absolutely all over it. Even with my mustard seed faith, He showed up. Summer of 2012 will go down as one of my favorite summers.
Today, I wanted to remember what God has done.
He taught me that He gave His best, not leftovers, and we should too.
He showed me how fear and control played into my stress and reminded me to LET GO.
We purged, purged, purged the house and found a few trigger points. My bookcases and closet are especially thankful. A few weeks later, Dani and I used the excess to fuel a Garage Sale for Orphans where $1,000 was raised. Have I shown you these photos yet?
Me and Dani
The kids ran the snack table and accepted donations
Lots and lots of people turned out to make this a success
Summer of 7 organizer, Katrina, came by!
In clothes week, God absolutely shook me to the core on clothes and makeup and reminded me of my 1,000 foot view of how we should dress.
God specifically provided for me in clothes week for my grandfather’s funeral.
He opened my eyes to “Waterfall Purchases” that I continue to pinpoint as we shop in all sorts of categories.
Spending week rocked me as He gave me a picture of being a Giving Tree and taught me that he blesses us to bless others and will continue to do so.
Waste week was a bit of a bummer but did I mention we did end up getting a compost bin the week after and have been ecstatically composting away?
In media week, he asked for a sacrifice but then provided a ram. We cut off DirecTV and soon followed with our phone bill so we could give that money for good every single month.
Even more in the last week, He tied together Grace for the Good Girl and Summer of 7 and showed me some yucky junk still going on in my heart and taught me He’s in the margin and continues to challenge me to create more margin.
Whew. What a summer. God is good.
To Katrina, thanks for organizing Summer of 7 and for coming to our yard sale and driving me to Greensboro and all your support. I’m glad to call you friend after this summer.
To Jen Hatmaker, thanks for your 7 months of sacrifice and the hard work of packaging it into a book. Oh, and all your Olympic tweets this summer. It’s all been such a blessing.
To you guys reading and my fellow Summer of 7ers, thanks for reading all the words this summer. The comments and emails and tweets are worth more than gold. Thank you for traveling this road with me.
[…] And I’m SO GLAD I did. SO GLAD. I know that God was directing me to initiate this because of the other people who picked up the book because of Summer of 7. I got to meet some wonderful other bloggers, including Amy at Permission to Peruse, who has really become a kindred spirit lately. Interestingly, she has been hearing A LOT of the same things from the Holy Spirit that I have. I mea… […]