Many families facing various challenges will hear things like: “I don’t know how you do it” or “I could never handle it so well” or “You guys are superheroes.”

While I’m not saying there aren’t days when I feel like someone should hand over a cape, the truth is?  We don’t do it.  We can’t handle it.  We aren’t the superheroes in our stories.

God does.  God can.  God is.

I’m frequently reminded of our utter dependence on God and that no one said life would be easy.  I always think of this post from New Year’s Day 2011 and remember that, three years later, I’m still learning to be grateful for the refining process.

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(The following post was originally published at my previous blog, Stinker Babies.)

Is it possible to sum up 365 days with just one word? Or to wrap up all your hopes, dreams and desires for an entire year into a neat and tiny one-word package? We’ll see. I’m going to try my best!

I’ve already posted about my lack of tears over seeing 2010 finally draw to a close. It was not an easy year to get through.

Jake hit the ground running with nursing school. Between studying, class, working, clinicals, and more studying, he was gone pretty much all the time. Sometimes, I would wake up at 3:30 am just to make sure he had come home. At one point, we found ourselves explaining Caleb’s statement, “My daddy is not at my house anymore.” Ouch.

School alone might have been enough to make this year interesting. But we were really on our toes when it came to figuring out Caleb.

For the last nine months, we suspected, denied, suspected again, advocated, waited, learned, and waited some more. Eventually, just before Christmas, we received a diagnosis of autism for our sweet boy.

Add Mama’s fatigue due to a dying thyroid, Grace entering the Terrible Twos, and learning that Daddy will be in school an entire year longer than we anticipated. I am not going to lie. It was entirely overwhelming at times.

So what word would I use to sum up the craziness that was 2010?

Refine.

According to ehow.com, refining silver is necessary in order to separate the pure silver from the dross. The process includes such pleasantries as nitric acid and being heated to 1200 degrees Celsius. Ouch.

God never promised that following him would be easy.

We all go through times in our lives when we are pruned and refined. I’m learning to be thankful for those times. It means that God still finds me worth improving. It means that I still have a role to play, small as it may be, in His plan. That’s very humbling.

So after a year like 2010, what word would sum up my hope for 2011?

Renew.

This is our prayer. We pray with confidence because we choose to believe His promises.

“But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior.” – Titus 3:4-6

Amen.