We all have a story and your story matters. Your story tells the history of your journey with Christ and speaks to the beauty of humanity. We engage in sharing our stories because our stories connect us. As the New Year begins, we want to be women who embrace new beginnings. We serve a God of second chances, and what better opportunity than the New Year to encourage one another to risk hoping for a new beginning!

Through the years, God has taught the women at Taylor’s Valley Baptist Church immeasurable truths about Himself and how our connections matter. Our connections often provide the fuel for vulnerability, a trait necessary for new starts. Over the next 31 days you will meet 31 different women sharing 31 different stories. Our hope is that by sharing our stories, we will show God’s faithfulness in our everyday lives and encourage you to look for God in all the new beginnings of a new year.  Get ready to belly laugh, shed a few tears (grab a tissue), and prepare your heart for God to speak through, “A New Year: Thrive.”

Sara Burt, Director of TVBC Thrive Women’s Ministry

Day One

Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?

(Psalm 139:7)

I am always amazed when God’s Word speaks directly into my heart and circumstances. I wish I had written down the many times His Word has spoken into my life. The times I do remember are precious to me.

One of those times happened many years ago while we were living in Senegal, West Africa. After my second miscarriage, I could not shake the thought that if I were in America, this would not be happening to me. I am not sure I could have articulated all that I was feeling, but underneath it all was a questioning of the goodness of God. After all, He had called us to be missionaries in West Africa where the medical services were not as advanced as those in Europe or America.

I would not have voiced those thoughts. But God was listening to my heart. One morning, as I was praying and reading the Word, He used this passage to expose what was in my heart and give me a new perspective.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139:7-12)

The phrase: ”If I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast!” struck me like a physical blow. God was still God on both sides of the Atlantic. He brought me to that place and He would guide and hold me. I eventually had four miscarriages, but I never forgot the lesson He taught me during that time.

Alice Statler