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.