I sat in my room earlier today with my journal on the my lap and my pen in my hand. I was ready to reflect on this past year. I was ready to deal with, what I thought would be, pondering on the difficult year. But, at the end I was surprised at what I realized about my 2011. Why is it so easy for us to remember the tough times but yet we forget the good ones along the way? While there were struggles and difficult times, I was overwhelmed by the amount of blessing that this past year has held. I am so thankful that 2011 was not like 2010. I am thankful that 2011 held so much hope and taught me so much what really hoping means. The following are some key aspects of my past year that I want to share with you. Some of these are happy, some of them are hard and painful but yet all of them had lessons for me to learn and because of that I am thankful.
This year the journey continued with the process of my heart regarding my ex boyfriend. I was still dealing with the pain and the hurt while attempting to grieve the loss of dreams. It all came to a head this past summer which you can read about here and I feel like it was a downhill journey from there. I can, finally, honestly say that I am no longer bitter or angry. I had the opportunity to see him a couple of days ago. It was good to see him, it was good to tell him that I was no longer angry. It was good for me to wish him the best to his face and deeply mean it. But it was hard. It was hard to see a man I loved not really seeking the Lord and making choices in his life that will affect him forever. I want more for him. I want more out of life for him. I want him to be able to rise up and become the man that I see the potential for. But, this won't happen until he fully surrenders to the Lord. And I pray for that for him. A lot. I wish I could be a constant in his life, I wish I could be involved and be someone who can encourage him to seek the Lord. But I can't. I may not be angry or bitter and I may genienly wish him well. But that doesn't change the fact that he represents lost dreams to me. He represents the lack of companionship in my life. He represents the loss dream of being married by now. And because of that......I can't really stay in touch with him. So, I've let him go. Maybe 2010 was about falling out of love with him and 2011 was about learning to let him go. Completely.
This year I learned a lot about loneliness. It's hard and I made a lot of choices I am not proud of. But through them I learned more about the grace of God and how it is new every morning. You can go here and read some of my thoughts on this earlier this year. How no matter what I do or where I go......God is always there waiting for me. I am so thankful for his patience with me as I repeatedly made the same choices over and over. And thankful for His faithfulness when I finally did start making the right choices and being able to experience and see why His plans are better and more satisfying.
Today I realized how much this year that God has provided me with people and community here in Colorado. It's not the type of community I would ideally like to have and I think I've taken the people for granted all year. I work with great people and have enjoyed relationships growing there. I got to know an amazing woman of God who I have the priveledge of labeling as my mentor now. I met some amazing girls who are now some of my closest friends here. My relationship continues to grow with the Huttos who have become my family here and where I can go and sit on their couch, not say anything and have that be okay. I'm thankful. Thankful for people who love and care about me here.
Africa. Africa was huge this year. It stirred up my heart for international ministry again. It started the journy of pursuing going back overseas. You can read here and here about some of that journey.
Finally......this year has been focused around hope but I'll talk a bit more about that tomorrow!
Happy New Year people!
