2022 Answered Prayers

Wednesday at 7:30 CST, Val will be prepping her journal on Instagram and our VMP Society Facebook group, join us!!

We’re kicking off our annual goal series (sign up here to make sure you don’t miss a post!) with one of my favorite things: sharing answered prayers!! 

We’ve got to start here friends! For many of us, it’s been a challenging year, and taking time to recognize that God has actually been very much at work is essential to our faith and our peace too! If you’ve had a great year, that’s all the more reason to celebrate! It would be easy to assume that we somehow made it all happen, but taking time to see God’s hand is crucial to our humility and dependence on the Lord. 

Deuteronomy 8:17-18 says, “Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.”

Want to know what else happens when we reflect on answered prayers? We spur the faith of others. Psalm 145:4 says, “One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts.” 

So, I pray today’s post is a reminder that as we pray to God, He hears us and He responds. If you haven’t done so yet this year, take some time to reflect on what the Lord has done. In, Pray Confidently and Consistently, I talk about surveying the land. Often, if we are praying for a handful of things, if we don’t see God work in them, we assume He hasn’t done anything. Surveying the land means we look under every nook and cranny of our lives to see what God has done, not just the big areas we are praying about. 

I think when we do that, we will be blown away by what God has done when we start looking for it!! At the end of this post, though, I will share a few prayers that are still unanswered because I have those too! Also, this is mostly a list of personal answered prayers because many things prayed for others are their stories to share.

JANUARY

1. Tyler preached his first sermon at church and did really well! 

2. Nerve test revealed no nerve damage. Praise the Lord!

3. Health answers: Within a week we got results on several tests and discovered I had mold in my body, a low-functioning gallbladder and Hashimoto’s. I had some direction for lots of unexplained symptoms. 

4. Redeeming our missed team retreat! We had a team retreat planned at Lake Travis at the Birdhouse, and with most of the team getting Covid in the span of 2 weeks, we had to cancel. Since it was already paid for, I decided to go there with Tyler and the girls. It was a short 48-hour trip but it was so refreshing to our little fam and took the sting out of not getting to meet in person as a team. 

5. Started a Bible study at my church going through Pray Confidently and Consistently. I had never led a Bible study like this before, so I was nervous, but it was so life-giving! I used this guide and it made it easy to do!

FEBRUARY

6. No nodules present. My mom had thyroid cancer at about my age so when I had some blood work reveal a thyroid issue, they made sure it wasn’t anything more. The cool thing was, as they were testing me, I thought they said there was a nodule and I was still flooded with peace from the Lord.

7. Brain priming started kicking in and my daily thoughts started to change. More on brain priming here. 

MARCH

8. Kara’s safe delivery for Noah!

9. Increase of joy despite challenges. 

10. Vivi experienced less anxiety. 

11. Vana grew a lot at school. 

12. Getting to help with our school gala. It was such a blessing to get to serve, but also was so fun getting to do events again. I miss wedding days after planning weddings for years before starting VMP!

APRIL

13. I spoke! Okay, it wasn’t a stage, but baby steps! It was a workshop for 20ish people, and believe me when I tell you, it was only by the grace of God I agreed to it and didn’t run for the woods when it was time to start. The retreat was so good for us as a church too and I got to pray with lots of ladies. 

14. Lots of mold found! This was a crazy story. We had a mold remediation team scheduled to come Friday to take care of our ceilings and check our baseboards. On Thursday, an interior designer came for a consult. I actually had bid on the consult during the silent auction at the school gala the month before! When she saw our shower, she said there’s 100% mold there. So we were able to tell the guys and they demoed the whole thing and found a ton!! 

MAY

15. We hired a youth pastor!! Tyler had taken on the role as interim youth guy the previous summer and we had been praying for a year for a solid replacement. It was a great fit! (This was a yet-to be answered prayer from last year!) 

16. We got paper in! We’d been waiting for paper for our soft cover journals for months and were very near running out. It’s actually why we created this Compose Prayer Journal option. We ended up getting enough sheets in the nick of time to be able to do TEN Compose colors for our current collection! 

17. Broken van was a quick fix. About 6 days before our 4,000 mile and month long trip, it looked like our transmission and brakes were going out. After an already expensive year of medical tests, bathroom demo and remodeling, and an upcoming trip, we were very grateful to hear our van would only cost $300 to fix!

JUNE 

18. Our June trip! We had the best month away traveling through Arizona, Utah and Wyoming. There were so many special moments where things “coincidently” worked out and I know it was the Lord. We had lots of adventure and a surprisingly smooth trip!

19. After a very low moment of panic attacks, I asked you guys and some friends to be praying for me and the Lord was so faithful in bringing me peace. 

20. Got to help a couple in Moab. After wrapping up the craziest hike in our short hiking career, we were heading out of the park. It was getting dark and a young couple from the Netherlands was having car trouble. Tyler tried to help jump their car but when it didn’t work, we offered them a ride into town to a hotel. When we asked them if they wanted to get some food they said no and didn’t want to be a bother I think. We went to get some pizza to-go. I saw garlic knots and even though we don’t usually spring for apps, we got some after our epic hike and as we drove back to our place, we saw the couple walking to get food!!! The Taco Bell they were walking up to was closed (even though the app said it was opened) so we stopped them and gave them some pizza (we had TONS more than we needed) and they were soo grateful!

JULY

21. Vivi and Vana’s teachers! We prayed a lot for the right teacher for each girl,whoever that would be, and we have been so blessed by them this year. 

22. VMP Photoshoot. In the past, when I’ve been super overwhelmed and showed up on the photoshoot day, things didn’t go well. I couldn’t make any creative decisions. I missed products to photograph and just overall didn’t create a good experience for anyone there. This year, despite being overwhelmed, through lots of prayer, the Lord was so present and carried us through for a great shoot. 

23. Workcation. With lots to get done for launch, I took 2 days holed up in a hotel in town and got two weeks worth of work done! 

24. Finding office space! It’s in my friend’s building so I get to hang with her more and it’s the ideal layout to help us get tons done!

AUGUST

25. Pregnancy announced! 🙂 (Not mine, y’all!!)

26. Sleeping in peace (which has been a big battle this year) and feeling as if there was a shield around my mind. 

27. Owen (my nephew) liking school. My sister was super nervous about how he’d do starting Mother’s Day Out for the first time and he’s thriving!

28. Hair is growing back. Granted, it’s mostly gray but I’ll take it! 😉  (From last year’s yet-to-be answered prayers too!)

SEPTEMBER

29. Another really dark moment, but it was like the skies parted and the Lord renewed my joy and hope after. 

30. Healing! More on that here! 

31. Amazing weather for the beach!! Okay, this sounds small but after a few trips of hurricanes and storms, this was the best trip we’ve had in a long time! 

32. The Lord preparing both Jane’s and my heart for her needing to leave VMP. God’s timing is perfect.  

33. Decisions made at church that have been in limbo for a while. 

OCTOBER

34. Good church leader retreat! 

35. Smooth shipping for pre-orders! This is when we ship out over 3,000 orders within 2 weeks. It’s a big undertaking (and honestly a fun time!) that went well!

36. Still experiencing spasms but less bothersome after my counseling session. 

37. Transformation in me. After needing to take over shipping earlier than expected, a very tough week gave way to a lot stronger Valerie. 

NOVEMBER

38. Another pregnancy announced! 😉 (Again, not me!)

39. Survived taking over shipping during the busiest time of the year! 

DECEMBER  

40. After choosing a candidate for shipping manager, the Lord made it very clear this was not the right fit. I prayed for a week feeling very conflicted about why we felt so confident in the choice when it felt like such a good fit. God gave unwavering clarity to not go forward with the hire. I got more confirmation after that answered a lot of my own questions. 

YET TO BE ANSWERED PRAYERS

• Complete healing with my body. 
• Shop Manager – Would love your prayers for us to find the right fit for this position! And if you know someone who is looking for a part-time job in Lafayette, send them this info. 

Okay 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 2023 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 Rhythms Prayer Journal (we still have a few left!) or Signature Prayer Journal and next year, you’ll be joining in on this reflection!!  

1 Chronicles 16:8-12 says, “Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always. Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced.”

Leave a comment of one of your greatest answered prayers of 2022 that will propel your prayer life in 2023.

COMING UP NEXT: 2022 Goals Recap