A new year....very grateful

"Faithful through the night Our God will never fail Our God will never fail ANCHOR THROUGH THE FLOOD You'll keep holding on I know You'll never fail Jesus You'll never fail...."--Hillsong I am amazed at how much the Lord loves us; how much He passionately pursues us...how much He cares about every detail in our lives. We have seen some incredible prayers answered over the last year and we are so grateful. We anxiously await to see what He will do in 2014. We are believing God for more answered prayers and are so thankful He led us to Church of the Highlands. Being there has been incredibly eye opening. He continues to heal our hearts and our minds. 2013---a recap--- *Stephanie left her job at Lyons HR at the end of March to begin training as a UPS Store franchisee *Matthew and the girls moved from the rental house to his parents so they could help while he was working and while Stephanie was in CA and then B'ham *Moved, yet again, in April to a rental home south of Pelham...even though this house is smaller than our home in Decatur, we were grateful it is bigger than the rental house...still very grateful we were in a home and not an apartment. We could not be more thankful for our girls and their attitudes through this whole process. The Lord protected their hearts and they dealt with each change with grace and flexibility. *end of May--the girls finished the school year and we were all reunited after about 6 weeks apart, on our 14th anniversary, May 24. *we began to regularly visit Church of the Highlands, after visiting a couple of other churches in the area *June 1--Began operating The UPS Store in Hoover as new franchisees *August--after much prayer, we decided to make Church of the Highlands our new church home...and we could not have been happier; the girls started new schools *Peak Season--those days around Thanksgiving and the weeks leading up to Christmas, after Christmas and through New Year's....we SURVIVED! We shipped somewhere around 3,000 packages and serviced about 1500 customers. By the grace of God, He got us through those longs days. *Christmas--a joyous time for us to reflect on all the gifts He's given us, to spend time with friends and family As new business/franchise owners, we've learned a lot...about ourselves, each other, and the general public....over the last seven months. As any of you, we've had good days and bad days...days where it seemed like nothing was going right--from tech problems, customer complaints, employee issues, etc. It's all part of it...but we've learned that He cares about ALL every detail. We've had some great opportunities to testify to His goodness and faithfulness. We pray above all, He would fill us with wisdom, love, grace, compassion, and humility....to run the business in a way that pleases and glorifies Him.