2020 Answered Prayers

Welcome to our annual goal series! Each weekday from December 29 – January 7, we’ll have a new post about wrapping up 2020 and launching into 2021. Check back in each day for fresh motivation!

Today, I’m sharing another new feature of our annual goal series: 2020 Answered Prayers! 

For this year, it’s gonna replace our 2020 Goals Review because to be honest, when quarantine hit, everything kind of stopped besides work expectations. Here’s the updates from Quarter 1 and the goals I set Quarter 2…9 days before quarantine. 😉 

I am kind of shocked I haven’t made this a specific post yet but I am always a little reserved to share a bunch of answered prayers. When you tell people a baby that was born healthy is an answered prayer and they may have prayed for the same thing and not seen it answered the way they hoped, it can be confusing. So I will preface this by saying, I hope the takeaway you get is a reminder that God is alive and well and ready to work in our lives. I’ll share several unanswered prayers too and what those taught me, but I do want to celebrate and glorify the Lord today!

JANUARY

• I asked God what my idols were and it’s the same that tends to creep up! Chocolate. I decided to fast for 40 days starting in February.
• Tyler was on the committee to find a new pastor for our church and this month they found a lot of clarity!
• Phone time was finally down. 
• I was praying for the right person to join us for Spring at the Silos and Mattie was able to come! Many of you know this experience turned out a little crazy due to Covid but Mattie was the most fun person to experience this with! 🙂  

FEBRUARY

• Fasting was really eye-opening. 
• Decided not to go to Haiti in May. I was honestly really confused by this, but in light of Covid, I’m grateful I didn’t make big plans to go only for them to be canceled. 

MARCH

• My brother got a job, not the one we were praying for, but actually a better job.
• Clear decision on Spring at the Silos. One of the coolest and quickest ways I saw God speak this year. Full story here.
• We were with a shipping fulfillment company from September to January. It didn’t go as well as I had hoped and I was wondering if it was a mistake that we did it in the first place. When Covid hit, the company we got cover paper from shut down, like completely, and if we hadn’t gone with the fulfillment company, we never would have printed journals so far in advance and had enough stock for the rest of our collection year. 
• Tyler had an office built in our garage the first of the year and we had moved the girls into sharing a room in December so we could make the 3rd bedroom an office for me. It was so crazy the timing of it. We had no idea what a blessing having an office for each of us would be when quarantine began. We split our days, me working a few hours and Tyler working a few hours for months. 
• Histamine issues surfaced. This is a very short version, but I started having histamine issues around the time quarantine started. One of the foods that affects histamine is chocolate and I truly think my reactions could have been much worse had I not “conveniently” been off chocolate for my fast while I was figuring it all out.

APRIL

• One of my big goals at the beginning of the year was to become a better speaker and I had three opportunities come my way for virtual speaking!
• Signed a book deal for my prayer book. The advance was better than I had expected and an incredible time to receive my first payment. 
• We prayed for Leah (Tyler’s sister) to find a job so she could move closer to home and she got one in South Louisiana!

MAY 

• I spent a lot of time praying for and writing our book of prompts that turned into Springboard Prayers. I wrote a TON this month! The finished product is available here and we’ve already heard from so many of you how God-led the prayers are!!
• I learned to use my time awake in the middle of the night (due to histamine issues) as time to pray and God showed up in cool ways putting names on my heart I didn’t know to pray for. 

JUNE 

• We had an opportunity to join another family for homeschooling with a teacher that was retiring! It’s been a really sweet experience for the girls and brought a lot of relief to two entrepreneurs (my husband is one too!) nervous about virtual learning. 
• New pastor prospect was officially offered the position and accepted!
• Hiring Brandi!! She has fit right in and is bringing so much to our team right when we needed it most!

JULY 

• Our offer on a property fell through. Tyler and I found some property to potentially build an office for Val Marie Paper and other office spaces. I drove by the property every morning for a week praying over our decision. It ended up falling through which we were really disappointed about. I still pass the property and wish it had worked out, BUT knowing what awaited us the next 4 months of the year, I am grateful it didn’t work out and grateful God made the NO so darn clear to us.
• Feeling a peace about Ashley “retiring”. Ashley had been feeling the tug to step down from shipping manager and stay home full time with her kids and I’m just really grateful by the time the Lord made it clear to her it was time, that He made it clear to me too! Ashley came to help ship when we got our big shipment in early December and we got to chat about how coming back was a beautiful closure and helped her feel like she made the right decision to pass it on. 
• I was feeling SUPER burnt out and asked a friend if she knew of any AirBNB’s near her lakehouse, and without hesitation, she texted back to say we could stay at her’s, sent the code and address and 30 minutes later we were in the car and off on a 24 hour adventure that brought me so much refreshment! It was so unexpected and generous and made me want to do the same for someone!!

AUGUST 

• Hiring Jane!! Jane took on the massive undertaking of Shop Manager when things were kicking up and they literally have not stopped since she started! She has done an amazing job and I’ve felt God’s confirmation several times that she was the right hire. 
• Yearly launch. God blew our goals out the water. 
• Hurricane Laura didn’t bring damage to Lafayette. I hate even saying this because it devastated Lake Charles. Tyler and the girls spent several Saturdays while I wrote the book in LC passing out food. 
• Lots of good convos with neighbors. We absolutely LOVE our neighborhood. It’s been such a blessing to get to interact with people as we go for walks or go to the pool even when we weren’t able to meet with people in our home as easily.

SEPTEMBER  

• Tyler’s schedule was super flexible and it made way for me to be able to write a TON and make my October 1 deadline. 
• We went to the beach for our annual trip with my side of the family and it was an absolute disaster. I had been looking forward to this for so long since work had been extra busy. After one really nice day on the beach, Hurricane Sally changed course and made a direct hit to where we were staying…15 stories up. 😬 I was so terrified. The building was swaying and glass in the wall of windows for our bedroom was shaking! We survived and the biggest answer to prayer when Tyler heard an alarm going off in the hall, found two girls our age with kids and invited them into our condo to wait out the alarm. Their husbands came too and we literally sat in a dark living room with a phone flashlight on, just talking. They were Christians, one a pastor, the other worked at a youth camp, and it was a really sweet way God calmed my fears in the middle of the storm. 

• 

  Maddie, my sister-in-law is pregnant!!

• Leah, my other sister-in-law got engaged!

NOVEMBER 

• Middle of the night, hearing God speak. More on this here. 
• Hurricane Delta hit but did little damage. We actually didn’t lose power so we were able to have a brother- and sister-in-law stay at our house. 
• Natalie is pregnant! She had discovered she had endometriosis and had a surgery planned in March to remove some cysts. It got pushed back a few months because of Covid but they were removed and they got pregnant just a few months later!
• Someone accepted Jesus! 🙌
• Prayed for my health in a proactive way and was able to respond to triggers better. See more here. 

DECEMBER

• Journals came in sooner than expected. I know that sounds crazy but we had learned of extra delays and had tried to see if we could pay to rush shipping and kept hitting dead ends. Then an option became available and we’re so grateful it did! If we had lost even a few days, I don’t think the majority of what arrived by Christmas would have!
• Weather was amazing the first few days! It got much colder but by that point, we had cleared out enough to be able to work from inside the unit instead of the cold wind. 
• We had a corner unit which made it really easy to pile ready packages. This sounds like a small thing but of all the units we could have had, it worked out to be perfect!
• Natalie’s genetic results for the baby came back great! (She’s 36 and doctors encouraged her since it’s considered a geriatric pregnancy and she’s at more risk for complications. I still can’t believe that’s the real name!) 
• I was nervous to work with a new editor because I had such a great experience with my last one and I’ve been so grateful for Karin’s input!! She’s been amazing!

Ok friends, if you haven’t yet, take your prayer journal or notebook you’ve written prayers in and go back through every square inch and reflect on what the Lord has done!! Do not pass GO, do not plan 2021 without this step. It’s so important that if we’re going to have faith in God for the unknown future, we need to know how faithful He has been.

Don’t have a record of what God’s been doing in your life? It’s never too late to start!! Grab a Signature Prayer Journal and next year, you’ll be joining in on this reflection!!  

Leave a comment of one of your greatest answered prayers of 2020 that will propel your prayer life in 2021.

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