With the start of 2017, I’ve been doing a lot of both reflecting on this past year and taking note of all the places where God’s fingerprints are all over it and looking forward to this new year and my new little adventure and dreaming about all of the crazy things God has up His sleeves for me along the way.
2016 has been a year full of surprises-graduating from the University of Texas and getting my dream job offer to then finding out that I got accepted to the world race and deciding to walk away from the worlds definition of success to follow where it seemed like the Lord was leading me, last minute signing up to do childcare at YoungLives camp and meeting some of the most incredible people and having the most incredible time even in a little peach nursery full of way too many crying babies that just wouldn’t stop and changing more than my fair share of explosive diapers and getting puked on so much that I got sick myself and the whole time watching God blow my mind with just how big and how mighty He is and how He really is capable of doing more than I could ever ask or imagine and watching God capture the hearts of sweet girls whose babies I got to love on all week long and watch Him fill them with life and take away their shame and replace it with pure joy, having girls sign up for WyldLife camp literally the day before we were supposed to leave and deciding to miss watching my friend Kortni get married just to go with them and pour myself out continuously so that middle school girls could experience a little taste of their Papa’s love for them and getting to watch some of those girls go from being longtime friends to forever little sisters and throwing the best little welcome to the forever fam party to celebrate and getting to step aside again and again and just let God do His thing and be amazed at just how good He truly is, thinking I was going to have to move back in with my parents after graduation until I left for the world race in January and then getting the best text message in the whole entire world from the most perfect “host mother” on the entire planet offering for me to live in their home in Austin and getting the sweetest most unexpected little bonus semester with the best WyldLife girls and the best co-leader and the best WyldLife team and the best little sister turned roomie.
But 2016 has also been a year full of weird, hard transitions and navigating unknown territory-going from the only life I’ve ever known, being a full time student to graduating from college and being done with school, at least for the time being, being on an extreme high watching my friends also graduate from college and go out into the real world and move to crazy cool new cities and start their dream jobs or begin their pursuit of a graduate degree at their dream school to then letting it hit me that I wasn’t doing those things because I chose to go on the world race and so while they were out there killing the game, I was nannying and working odd jobs to help raise money for my trip and it just felt like everyone else was moving on with this lives while I was stuck in this strange waiting phase. And even though it’s been hard and weird, I wouldn’t trade my little waiting phase for the world because He is worth it, a life with Him, spent following Him and making much of His name and being satisfied in Him is worth it!
The cool thing is that God was there for me all year long, in the surprises and in the waiting and the transition and all the spaces in between. And even as I enter into this new year and this new adventure, God will still be there for me. The waiting has finally come to an end and the time is finally here to “arise, shine, because [my] light has come” and tomorrow I take off for Atlanta to go to launch for my world race. I’m feeling more ready than ever for my new little Luke 9/Isaiah 61 year-ready to leave my comfort zone behind, ready to let go and get lost in Him. Bring it on 2017!!
