2019 I could be very angry with you. I cried, I grieved, my life changed directions, and my plans didn’t work out. But 2019 I could also thank you. I laughed, I found a new direction, I danced, formed new friendships, old one ignited and I stripped off lies holding me back and saw new faces of God. I think I say this every year, but 2019 you’ve been the hardest one yet. You have also been the best one yet. I suffered but wow did I see so much growth.
I started January as a woman of proud independence, with a lot of hope’s and not a lot of direction. I had a job that showed me deliverance in my ability to provide for myself. YoungLife showed me my first taste of true community and deep friendship the summer before well working for 2 months at a camp, and our reunion in January was a rekindling of true comfort in a place full of friends after God’s heart. January, you were the month I first heard of the World Race. I will be grateful for you January because you where the month that my direction changed. This is the month God stirred my Spirit by showing me a new way of life that wasn’t High school, college, job or failure.
February, you started as a month of pretending. Avoiding my application to the World Race because deep down I didn’t feel worthy, ready or competent enough. Avoiding telling people about my application because I probably wouldn’t get in anyways. Then February you really kicked my butt when I got accepted. I struggled to feel like I could actually do what God was telling me to do. I put on a big smile and procrastinated absorbing that I would be leaving my comfort zone. But God placed good friends in my life. Ones who encouraged me and made me smile and laugh for real. So February I’m grateful for you because you taught me not to avoid my pain, to lean into it and seek community.
March you came around in a flash, and with you came my last Camp with Timberlake Church as a camper. I went to camp feeling strong, but God showed me at camp my strength and independence isn’t what I need and won’t sustain me. He broke down that false self-security and told me to build my foundation again on his strength. I confronted lies I had suppressed with God holding my hand all the way through. March I’m thankful for you because I learned to give it all to God, like actually ALL of it not just what I wanted to give him.
Oh April, you were probably my calmest month this year. I worked, I hung out with friends, had Taylor Swift sing alongs, had weekly bible studies with friends, I found Joy in just living my life. Then you came to a close with a grand vacation, Mexico with my Best girl Sami. I was able to appreciate just how much your friendship all through high school meant to me Sami. April, thank you for showing me community.
May, you were an interesting one to say the least. I listened to all my friends make their college plans and get excited for their new independence. I was finally at the point I couldn’t postpone the emotions of leaving for the World Race anymore. I let it sink in, I was sad to leave and happy to go all at the same time. But once again God you filled me with a hope for good things to come and the Joy of deep friendships. You blessed me with one of the greatest trips of my life, Germany with my big sister. Yes the country was gorgeous, yes I got to see the places where history I’ve loved to study happened but most of all I got to laugh and make unforgettable memories with my sister. May I’m grateful to you because this is the time I realized I had people to miss and people to miss me when I left.
June, you got me good. Whirlwind is the only word I can think to describe you as. You started off with a bang; my 19th birthday approached and conveniently was on the same day as prom. God was good in this, I’ve never enjoyed my birthday particularly however 19 you were different. I was able to celebrate with my friends, get all dressed up, go to dinner, have a dance party; the attention wasn’t all on me yet my friends showed me great love and companionship.
Then that’s when He came in. I tried to tell myself I had to push you away Carter. You told me you loved me, and treated me with the utmost kindness and respect that I didn’t feel I deserved. I pushed down my emotions and tried to get you to decide I wasn’t worth waiting for. I’ll always remember the day I admitted to myself how I truly felt about you. I was talking to a friend about how I was mad that God would give me such a good man right before I was going to leave, and I couldn’t put you through nine months of distance. Well thank the Lord for friends who know us better then we know ourselves, because at the end of my outburst all my friend did was laugh and told me, “Megan, it hurts because you love him and your pushing him away because your afraid to get hurt”. How right she was made me so mad, until I saw you the next day and couldn’t stop smiling, all I could think was “oh crap, she’s right”, from there on I was all in. I’ve known I can trust God but I’ve always had a hard time trusting people and wow how God has redeemed my view of men through you Carter. So thank you.
June you kept the blows coming. I watched all my old classmates and closest friends graduate High school. They walked at graduation, went to senior send off and threw graduation parties. All things I knew I would never do. God comforted me, he showed me that in order to truly celebrate with my friends and be proud of them I needed to grieve what was no more, be confident with the choices I made that put me where I was, and be glad for where I was and where I was going. God held my hand and showed me all the growth and freedom I’d walked through. He was proud of me, I was happy and that was far more precious then any diploma. So thank you June for friendship, pain, growth and redemption.
July you came about opening with a period of companionship, God set apart this time to remind me of the joy and community I have in my hometown. Then came training camp, I flew down to Georgia and got my first taste of the World Race and Wow, my world was shaken. I didn’t realize how many walls I still had built up and how many lies I still had being spoken over me. I went home with a renewed hunger to lean more into my relationship with God but also a great apprehension for this season I was about to walk into. July thank you for teaching me to appreciate what I have and that I’m never done growing or learning about God.
Oh August, I look back on you in delight. You launched me into a season of harmony, giving me time to abide in my relationships at home before leaving. I spent the first half of you in a state of ‘go, go, go’, not wanting to miss a moment of joy with my friends I hold so close. We were all preparing to go off into the world and enter new communities but we had this month to just be us. I’m perpetually appreciative and will always cherish this season in my heart. Then came the goodbyes. In my past I would have never let myself get close enough to people because I was scared of the pain of goodbyes. Well God came through (as he always does) and redeemed my false idea that the vulnerability of friendship wasn’t worth the pain it might cause. The goodbyes for this phase of life and these good friends hurt because I had experienced immense joy with them, those memories are worth more than any pain could ever take from me. August thank you for showing me redemption for my view of the importance of community and camaraderie.
Then September rolled around and hit me like a ton of bricks. It was time to surrender my old life and my comfort zone to God, the time he called me to had come. I flew out to Georgia accompanied by my mom, to meet up with my squad and start our 9-month venture. The week in Georgia was one of the most emotionally exhausting ones I’d had in a long time. I suffered a lot with the pain of not feeling worthy to go and serve God in the way he called me to, but our good Lord comforted me and reminded me its not through our strength but his that we are equipped to serve. In that week I got to enjoy the friendship of my mom and hear her encouragements for me, but mostly I got to laugh with her and rest in her company and goodness before leaving home. Then suddenly I was at an airport boarding a plane on rout to Romania, with 30 strangers who were now going to be my roommates, friends and family. Talk about overwhelming. September was my first month in this new world of community, intimacy and missions. I learned I definitely don’t have it all together, and when I try to act like I do it causes more problems and more time spent in discomfort when I could be walking through healing. I thought I was going on this trip to serve others but truthfully I was the one walking through healing. Thank you September for stretching me and tearing down walls I didn’t know existed.
October I think you were my favorite part of 2019, you were also the stage I spent in the most discomfort. With you came the marker of successfully surviving month 1 of the world race, I was actually doing it!! Then came the news our squad of 30 would be splitting up, some would stay in the city we had been living in and 14 of us moved to a different town. Off my team and the boys team went with our massive packs to the tremendously small town of Draganesti. Us girls spent the first two weeks living in a little apartment where we got to have lots of dance parties, breakdowns and breakthroughs. At that tiny kitchen table we learned the value of sisterhood and loving one another out of a place of understanding. October was so full of memories and transformation; Lise died my hair HOT pink, we moved a total of seven times in 3 weeks, we thought we were going to Bulgaria for a day but we actually ended up in Serbia, 12 out of 14 of us got the flu (at the same time), we “cooked” some really interesting meals, and made a lot of dad jokes. This was a month where we didn’t know where we were going to sleep the next day or if we were going to have to pick everything we owned up and move again to another unfamiliar house. Through this we learned to rely on God to provide, that we don’t need to have a plan, that we can always find home and comfort in him. Though all these memories and lessons will stay with me forever, the one thing I learned this October that impacts me every day and will continue for the rest of my life is how I can personally talk to God. I hear him, spend time with him and ask him for guidance. I never new I needed that, I never thought it was possible but now I cant envision not waking up and saying good morning to my best friend, whose consistently there to tell me good morning with an immense smile. October you are special to me because you were the time I realized I can be best friends with God and trust my sisters in Christ.
November came around and we went back to being a big squad of 30 in the city again. When you spend everyday with someone its hard to notice the ways they have changed, but when we came back together it was astounding the transformation I could see in the people we had been separated from, and they said the same to us. This was a time of reflection for me, my eyes had been opened that I will always have places I need to heal and grow in. I leaned more into becoming friends with God and he taught me to pray for those it’s hard to love, to always ask him what face of God does that person bear. God made human kind in his image, therefore were all capable of being reflections of Christ, we rarely realize this about others but even less so with ourselves. If I seek forgiveness, grace and kindness then I should be a woman who gives forgiveness, grace and kindness. I’m appreciative for this time because I learned to walk in humility and never doubt God’s working in my life and in others.
December came and Romania left, we were off to our next country. Another crazy travel day… little sleep, airplane food, 5 minutes to catch connecting flights, and of course trying not to throw our backs out picking up our packs. At last we landed in Guatemala, and immediately we felt a sense of peace, joy and clearness in our souls. “The land of eternal spring” is what this place in known for, and boy can I vouch for whoever first called it that. In Guatemala there’s been an endless abundance of peace. I walked out redemption in things I didn’t know I needed to be redeemed. God called me to a month of fasting and learning to be patient and obedient to his plans, He has never let me down. December I was lucky to get a parasite (YAY….), I had to slow down from our go go go schedule, but through this the Lord walked me through the difference between stillness and isolation. I could be mad and isolate myself because I wasn’t physically able to be running around serving and spending time with my community or I could actively seek to spend time with Jesus, to be still in his presence and abide in his friendship. December was a month of refining and realigning with God.
2019, thank you for redemption, growth and friendship. This is an account of so much you had me walk through but it’s not even close to a portion of what went down in this year. 2020 I’m so exited to see what you’re going to walk me through. Happy New Year!!
