A New Year

Hey everyone!  How are you all doing?  A new year is underway here in the Sheridan household, with January filled with much less traveling than the last couple months.  We enjoyed the Christmas season with a quieter Christmas than usual with Josh's sister and her boyfriend and Felicia's family.  Jude didn't really know what was going on but he loved the lights on the Christmas tree.  He is onto month number five of life now.  He is 13lbs 12oz now and 25 1/2 inches tall.  He has yet to roll over but he has a habit of rolling onto his side and leaving his arms bent so he can't roll over.  He talks non stop and loves licking anything and everything.  He drools everywhere, loves his books and his toys.  He's learning to sit up in his chair and loves smiling and laughing.


Felicia and I are doing well, learning how to parent and communicate with one another better as well as maintaining a healthy relationship with another person in our lives now.  We are starting to get involved with teaching some Awana lessons and Josh may get a chance to teach a Sunday school class this Spring.  Josh spoke with our MTC rep last week and he said he will be calling our pastor right away to speak with him about us and our hopeful application to MTC so please be praying that conversation goes well and that we will be able to start our application!  There is also a guy Josh's works with named Dave who seems to be a believer, but has a worldview that isn't consistent with Scripture so please pray for good conversations, for wisdom in how Josh responds and for Dave's mind to be renewed.

The other day Josh challenged me with the question, "why did God create us?" My answer was the obvious, "because God desired a relationship with us." The next question he asked was, "how do we know?"  Going through each day we often take advantage of our life. We don't ever wonder the real reason we exist or seek out the answers to why we believe what we believe. Yes, I believe God created Adam to enjoy a friendship with him. They walked in the Garden of Eden together and enjoyed a friendship. When Adam told God he was lonely, God created Eve. When they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil they hid. God made them clothes and then had a talk with them. When God heard the serpent deceived Eve he said to him, "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel." (Genesis 3:15) Like me for a long time, you probably just browse over this verse never noticing the significant meaning. This verse is God's first promise to us. This is Him showing us that he still wants to continue a relationship with us, even though Adam and Eve disobeyed. Let's start with the word enmity; another word for it is friction or hostility. So God is going to put some sort of struggle between Eve's seed and Satan's seed. The verse then goes on to say, "He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel." God is talking to the serpent right now, telling him that one of Eve's descendants will crush the serpents descendants heads, and he will only strike their heel. God is telling him that one day there will be a Redeemer, to redeem fallen mankind who has now been separated from God, and to make a relationship between God and man possible again. How cool is that?

This is the reason Josh and I are pursuing a life involved in missions among unreached people groups, because God continues to remind us that God loves mankind, mankind is separated from Him apart from knowing Christ and there are millions of people who have never heard of Christ.  Please continue to pray for us as we keep you all in our prayers as well.  We love you all!

The Sheridan's