God BE. 

God will be good to me in 2019. I wrote a little post and shared it on Instagram back in January of this year and just this week, felt Holy Spirit bring it back to mind. 

“God will be good to me in 2019. Repeat after me… God WILL BE good to me in 2019. God has been good to me (you) and God will never stop being good to me (you). I keep hearing “I see your goodness, here” over + over again in my mind. I hear it in my head until it goes to my heart and I live out of the revelation that God’s goodness is HERE. It’s here in the mornings, sitting with my bible open in front of me and a coffee in my hand with the sun peeking through the window behind me. Driving into work, it’s in the strangers eyes smiling back at me at a red light. His goodness is wrapped into the really high highs and the really low lows + every moment in between. The moments we can’t contain the laughter coming out of us and the ones where our hearts physically hurt and we don’t know when they’ll stop. Yesterday I ran into a friend of a someone that broke my heart in 2017, that God spent almost all of 2018 healing (like open heart surgery healing, y’all, making my heart whole❤️), so that in 2019, I could run into him without looking around and wondering if they were together, I could be okay if they were, and I could keep on walking on incline with a sweaty face and a soft heart, and I could say ohhh my God, I see your goodness here. That our eyes would be opened to see the goodness of God. That we would have softened hearts to not reject what He’s doing (like giving us a new heart, that we wouldn’t reject the new heart He’s trying to give us and make out of us and use in us for others, for His glory). That we would be able to in the small, normal, day to day moments see His goodness and in the moments that feel like lifetimes, see His goodness. That we would see His goodness in the pain and in the joy. That our eyes would have a permanent filter through which we see. God is good + God BE good. That we would stop second guessing Him because He’s shown us who He is before and He hasn’t changed, His nature is good. To the core of who He is, good. You see, I can see His goodness here EVEN WHEN and even still, because I know who He is. He’s revealed Himself as kindness in all that He does. He has been good, he is good, he will keep being good to me. Trustworthy in all He promises. Faithful in all He does. And if you can’t see his goodness yet, you can see His goodness in the fact that He’s still working and moving and you will, oh love, you will. And that, that is good. 

This year will not be perfect, we can all let that expectation go. But I promise you this, you will see the goodness of God.. Woven into every single day, wooing your heart back to His. God is good. God is good to you. God uses what’s not been good, for good. In everything. I can see your goodness here.”

And in the sweetest, still, small voice I heard, “Don’t forget love, God BE good to you.” 

How could I forget?

God be good to me.

I know I probably sound a little grammatically incorrect right here, but let me explain. Be, by definition – and boy oh boy do I love looking up definitions of words – means to exist. To occur, take place, occupy a position, stay in the same place or position, come, go, having the state, quality, identity, nature, or role; amount to, represent, or consist of — God BE. God doesn’t change and so, good is who He is. It’s all that He does, it’s His very nature. It’s what He comes and goes in, all that He amounts to, it’s the characteristic that He occupies. You want to know what good is? Good is God. God is good. God be good to me. God be good to you.

So here’s the thing, It’s so easy, and sometimes so much easier, to toss our hands in the air and call it quits on our goals, the things we’d hoped for, and the dreams we had for the year once October rolls around and they’re nowhere in sight. It feels like there’s not enough time left, too much to do, too much to un-do, not enough money, too far in, no way out. October, while personally the beginning of my absolute favorite season, can sort of bring a damper to the end of a year if you let it. **If you let it.** Don’t get me wrong, this (well, fall, if Tennessee will ever get it!!) is my favorite season!! The chill in the air, the leaves falling and bustling on the ground, Silk almond milk pumpkin creamer (can I get an AMEN and thank you Jesus!?), football on Sunday afternoons, fires, smores, loved ones (like LOVED ones, not just talking family here) gathered around a table, twinkly lights, and all things cozy fill my heart. I LOVE it. So it’s not that I don’t love these next few months of the year, it’s just that sometimes these next few months feel like the hardest. However, this year feels different. I’m not quite ready for it to end because I know God isn’t done being good to me yet. God has been good to me this year. God is being good to me right now. He is not finished being good. And so today I choose to lean into His goodness. I choose to have eyes that see and a heart that receives. I choose to lay down my expectations of what I think GOOD should look like and trust what God sees as good. Trust that God BE good. In all that He does, every part of who He is. Good.

In the past few years I have opened a business, got my heart broken, had God put it back together. I’ve lived at home, moved out, moved back home, moved out, met my best friends, switched churches, etc… I’ve experienced the highs and lows that come along with opening a business. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve laughed a lot. I’ve cried a lot. I’ve had Bell’s Palsy, many sleepless nights, and hives that covered my entire body lasting for weeks at a time. I’ve had to surrender things and people I thought I wanted, thought I loved, and I’ve had to be okay with not getting what I had thought that I’d needed out of them. I’ve been obedient to things God has put on my heart and haven’t been obedient to others. I’ve written bits and pieces of what I hope to one day be a book in notes on my phone so I don’t forget the ways and places and days that I found God. Or rather, God found me. The past few years have been transformative and hard and good. 

He was with me there and He was good to me then. 

In the next few years, I hope to open more businesses. I hope to see Imago Dei all over the US, with stories upon stories of how they were met by the spirit of God the second they walked in. Coming in one way and leaving more free with more joy, more peace, feeling more loved and seen by the Father… seeing themselves a little bit more made in the image of God than they did before they walked in. I would love to fund orphanages and missions and other people’s dreams and watch and take part in the things that God is breathing His very breath of life into. I want to be so generous it doesn’t make sense, whether I have or have not. I would love to have written a book (or books) on God’s faithfulness and goodness and kindness, His generosity and love, His redemptive power and ability to restore back to better than before and have it published and in the hands of young girls and ladies who need to hear what I needed to hear as I’ve walked through the same things the little bit of life that I’ve lived. I hope to be married and starting a family. I’d love to live in the country across from a field of cows as a stone of remembrance of how God saved me – so much better Your way – and heck, have a pond for fishing and green house for pretty flowers and such. I want to see my parents’ in their dream home, my best friend’s children grow up, my brother and sister in law live close by. I want to see freedom, deliverance, abundance, and joy in areas I haven’t seen them in before… I’d love to see a lot of things, y’all, but none more than I want to see the goodness of my Father. I don’t want to miss Him here looking for Him ‘there’. 

I know for me, the beginning of a year can look a whole lot like this. Looking back on past years, you don’t have to dig too deep or go back too far to be reminded of the good and the bad, the highs and the lows, the spotlight moments and the ones no one knows about but you, head on your pillow with a snotty nose and wet pillowcase. Am I right? We know what’s behind us and we can only hope and plan and make goals for what we’d like to see ahead. Hello, New Year’s Resolutions. But months, like years, are just periods of time God graces us with. Can’t go back and can’t skip ahead. He was with us then and He’ll be with us (because He already is) there, but the only place we are with Him is right now. Let’s be with Him. Let’s not miss Him being good to us now. Today is not the final day and God’s not finished with you yet. So you may not be where you hoped you’d be on September 25th, 2019 when you thought about this day nine months ago, but that’s okay, me either. Ohh, but something’s shifted on the inside of me and I hope the same for you… Hope’s not dead and the year isn’t over.

This year feels different. 

In the middle of playing the name game of what the past few years have looked like, what the past few months have looked like, what I hope for the next few years to look like or what I feel the last few months of this year should look like, let’s take a second and look at the right here, the ‘right now’. We can’t go back and we can’t jump ahead into what’s not yet come. We can’t anticipate what a year is going to look like or what years to come will actually look like, but we can anticipate the goodness of God. Seeping into every area of our lives. Painting it pretty. Bringing color and life into things that felt dead and dull. We can choose today to see His goodness here. Right where we are. 

He’s with us and being good to us in the healing of our hearts, the redeeming of our stories that He’s so beautifully orchestrated. The country drives with the windows down and music up as the weather starts to cool in the evenings. He’s with us in the waiting as we so joyfully celebrate our friends and stand beside them in their weddings. In the endless amounts blobs of thoughts and words, the book in my notes, He’s being good there. He’s being good to us in our apartments and rental homes.  Good to us when the business ideas are still in a prayer journals. When things you had lined up fall through. God is being good to us when our heart breaks and aches and we don’t see an end to the feeling. He’s being good as we frantically hop in the car to drive five hours when we find out our first nephew is about to be born. Being good to us as we’re walking around with our moms, coffee in hand, peace in heart. Painting white walls in an old factory warehouse with no AC, He’s with me. Sitting in an attic of girls worshipping on a Monday night and walking through a creek on a Saturday morning because something in me needed to. With me. Being good to me. Loving me. 

Shifting my eyes and setting my heart today. God has been good to me and He will be good to me and He’s being good to me right now. Thankful that where there is breath, there is hope, and where there is hope, there is life. 

Look around. God’s being good to you.

God’s being good to me.

Sarah Tucker is the owner of Imago Dei in Franklin, TN, where the heart behind the shop is to point people back to Jesus and serve as a reminder to everyone who visits that they are made in the image of God. She loves drinking coffee, long country drives, and spending time with her friends and family!

Follow Sarah on Instagram @sarahatucker