Here's To A New Year

So its almost 2014. Normally I don't like doing these kinds of posts, but I've been feeling nostalgic and so much has happened in the last year, so it seemed appropriate.

So what happened...

Some big things like graduating from college and doing a DTS. My nephew was born, and won my heart forever.

Some less big things like falling in love with the movie Moonrise Kingdom, running my first 5k while getting color thrown on me, pass/failing my first class my last semester of college, learning how to cook for 30 people at a time, surviving my first tornado warning, going to a movie at a drive in theater for the first time, realizing Lake Superior does indeed look like the ocean while backpacking in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, going to Mexico for outreach on a blue school bus, cutting my bangs again.

My heart went through a lot of strain this year though, with so many comings and goings. It is a painful thing moving so often, so drastically, meeting and saying goodbye to so many people so quickly. Graduating, moving back to Spokane from Tacoma, moving to Madison for DTS, going to Juarez for a month, Creel for a month, back to Madison, back to Spokane, to DC to meet my nephew, back to Spokane again for who knows how long. It is a challenge every day to keep my heart open to the people around me, to not grow calloused and hard, to allow room for attachments to grow.

This year was hard in other ways as well. Thankfully good things happened, or I don't think I would ever want to remember this year at all. God has slowly been knitting my heart back in place, but it has been a slow and painful process. Maybe in a year again from now I will be willing to speak openly about it all, but for now I am just praying that as I heal the scars won't be too jagged.

I am so incredibly grateful for each and every person that walked with me in love this last year, I couldn't have made it through without you all. No matter how painful relationships can be, the joys are worth the possible hurts.

So here's to a new year. A year filled with hope, with joy, with peace, with love, with tears. Really the only resolution I want to make is that I will walk with God through this year, seeking Him through each and every step along the way.

A Quite Late Update

Well lots has happened since I posted last. Ever since getting back to Mexico and finishing up my DTS and heading back to Spokane I have meant to write an update on here, but somehow never got around to it.

Last time I posted we were on our way back to Juarez from Creel...we spent a few days in Juarez, then spent a week on the Oklahoma/Arkansas border at a conference, then a week in Madison debriefing, then home to Spokane. Now almost 6 weeks later...

One of the persistent questions I have received since being back in Spokane is what I learned. The, "If there is one overarching lesson, what was it?" sort of question. After the typical, "how was your trip?" question. At first I didn't know how to answer this question, let alone even process what it might mean. Overarching lesson? Five months of my life being inundated with new ideas and thoughts about myself and God almost nonstop...all boiled down to one lesson? So after promptly avoiding even thinking about such lessons for a week or so my brain started slowly churning again.

I came up with an answer quickly enough, but somehow it didn't seem to really encapsulate the things I learned. The answer I grew accustomed to giving was something like learning to rely on God for my strength. While this is truly a lesson I learned and had to practice often, in some ways it barely scratches the surface of this five month process.

I had to be broken down, more broken than I already was, then find God in that brokenness. I tried to go to people to find my strength, but they failed me again and again. I tried to hide, run away, disappear, but those options only lasted so long before I was forced out of my shell again. Due to the nature of the DTS, all the methods I used to use to run away were not available to me, so I retreated to a deeper level. Always present, but rarely available. Hardly trusting, always skeptical, on edge, defensive towards anyone who made assumptions about how they might help me, cynical of motivations, dead inside.

Then we went on outreach. All my walls were challenged yet again. This time I had even less options, the first place I should have turned long ago was really the only place I could turn. Not saying I didn't go to God before, it was just never enough. I never let God be enough in my heart. I often looked to God as more of a security blanket than my life. I would use my relationship with God as a means to other friendships, as a means to understanding the world and my place in it, as a means to ensure salvation. Never did I seek a relationship with God just because I loved him and knew that he loved me. And honestly I don't even know if I am there yet.

Lately I've been struggling still. Struggling with relationships, struggling with decisions, struggling with commitment...and where has God been? Surely right beside me, but I do a short quiet time before going to bed and call that sufficient, and live ruled by anxiety and fear. Its a horrible thing to know how to fix my problems, yet somehow unable to do so.

So I guess I did learn a lot during my DTS, even though I still hardly know how to articulate those lessons, let alone apply them. But here are some of my thoughts at least. I am sure this process will not end for awhile.