Oklahoma New Year

Happy New Year from Oklahoma!

In trying to decide what to write about this month, I tossed around the idea of giving a run down of what has been accomplished in Barnsdall over the past year. But the idea of treating results as success has always rubbed me the wrong way, so instead I’m going to write about all the things we saw God doing in 2021.

We saw Him move on the hearts of people hundreds of miles away to give resource and support to the most vulnerable in our community.

We saw Him offer invitation after invitation to hurting people to come out of their usual way of doing things and find something different.

We saw Him kneel close to those that our society deems unreachable.

We saw Him challenge those who think they’ve got it all right.

We heard Him whisper promises upon comfort. We experienced Him invading our pain to lift us up and set us back on our feet.

We sat close. We listened to His heartbeat— it’s loneliness, it’s love, and it’s longing.

And we accepted the invitation from Him to take on another year of this. Shoulder to shoulder, shedding light in the dark places.