Kicking the Year Off Right!

We have had an incredible start for the new year, but the most exciting thing had to be our big snow event. This kind of thing just doesn't happen in Louisiana! The most snow on record for Lafayette, LA is 14” in 1895. 130 years later, Mother Nature gave it another go! The official record was 10 inches! It was absolutely beautiful. On day one, if you were interested in building a snowman like I was, the snow was too powdery. It would have made great skiing snow, but alas we have no hills! Nevertheless, we enjoyed what Bud Plake is affectionally calling “Snowmageddon!” By day two we were able to build this guy! In addition to the snow, we had a record-breaking low of 4 degrees!

It is always so great having Pastor Denny with us to kick off the new year. I am so thankful for his apostolic leadership in my life and in our church. He always brings such a great word to Crossroads. This year, his message emphasis was on the promise found in John 1:12 that God gives us the power to become. My prayer this year is I will become everything God has called me to be! I am praying that God will empower us to become the church He has raised us up to be in these last days. We hosted our 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting again this year and, until the snow event, we were averaging between 400-500 people joining in online and in person! We also have over 300 people in our church doing The Bible Recap Bible reading plan with us this year! 

We got to bring the family to the rodeo in January! We brought Robin and Chase up attending the rodeo every year and they always enjoyed it. I have been looking forward to introducing the grandkids to this family-friendly event and I think they really got a kick out of it. My parents brought me to the rodeo when I was young and that’s where my fascination with horses began. I would love it if one or both of my grand babies shared my passion for horses one day! They sure looked cute in their cowboy hats we had saved from when Robin and Chase were littles! 

January is always a big birthday month for our family! Robin’s birthday was on the 8th and my birthday was on the 17th. We celebrated Robin’s birthday at her favorite sushi restaurant and celebrated mine at a new Indian place that we LOVED! These are two of our family's favorite types of food and we always each typically choose one or the other! Because of the time of year me and Robin's birthday falls, it's not uncommon for us to choose King Cake as desert! 2025 hasn't completely been without challenges so far, but it really has shown great promise! 

The Elephant In the Room

It’s New Year’s Day, 2025. We have just enjoyed a wonderful holiday season surrounded by family and friends and are now looking ahead to the new year and all the oppertunities that God will bring our way.  One of my favorite moments over the Christmas break was when my son-in-law Eli sent us a video of our little two-year old granddaughter Elsie sitting in the floor with a stuffed Elephant and an opened book, thumbing through the pages. As she turned page after page of this unillustrated novel, she looked at her stuffed Elephant and said, “No pictures Elephant - sorry!” 

This provided us with a good laugh, but it also brought an inspired thought to me. I would like to address the “Elephant in the room” for many. Here you sit at the threshold of a new year and you’ve got no picture - no vision if you will - for what you should be striving to achieve this year. You have no goals, no resolutions, no ambitions for the next twelve months.

I want to challenge you to take this to the Lord. I believe God wants to give you a picture of the things He would like to do in you and through you in the coming days. There’s a wonderful passage of scripture in Psalm 143:10 where the Psalmist prays, "You are my God. Show me what you want me to do, and let your gentle Spirit lead me in the right path.” Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” This doesn’t mean God will give you anything you want. It means if you seek Him and put your heart in His hands, He will fill your heart with desires that reflect what He is wanting you to do. Treat those things like your sacred assignment and live on mission this year! Let the elephant in the room know you’ve got the picture now!