Silent Night; (an open and vulnerable goodbye to 2010).

[I’m sitting here listening to my Pandora “David Nevue” station, as I write this. I recommend you do the same as you read.]

Melancholy, that is what flavor I taste when I look back at this year that has passed. In some ways I want to run back to this place last year, not to redo things, specifically, but to slow the forward procession of time. I can’t believe a year has passed me by, again.

Sure, there are many things I’d like do overs on, but even if I got the opportunity I don’t know that I’d think of a better solution in the moment. For, I’ve had many moments to think of my ‘mistakes’, and I still don’t know how I get into them. There are rare times I figure out “why”, and often it is because of who I am, that I do what I do.

I’ve been called a people pleaser, I’ve been called fake—I’ve been disliked and dismissed, but most often, I think I’ve just been misunderstood.

If this year has taught me nothing else, it has taught me that this is me. Strip away hopes and dreams, strip away my plans, throw in some isolation, and see how I respond. This is how I respond. This is who I am.

I didn’t achieve the things I had planned, and I feel somewhat incomplete. I did not gain hold of the substances of my hopes. I did not find my calling, and the wind has been knocked out of me more than once in the past year.

But this is who I’ve been this year. I’ve gritted my teeth and faced my fears. I’ve taken tough situations and made the best I could of them (through prayer and allowing myself to remain vulnerable). I’ve stayed put when I’ve wanted to run. I’ve stayed in view when I wanted to hide. I’ve cried and I’ve laughed. I’ve pushed myself out of my comfort zone. I’ve prayed for a ministry partner to love, and God has instead given me more ministries to love. I’ve struggled to know where God is leading me, but I’ve kept following—fearfully, timidly, at times—but following. I’m filled with hope. I am not held down, for I have let God lift me up.

Anyone looking back on my life, if my footprints were left indefinitely in soil of life, would see this year full of circles, of turning back, and of times I fell to my knees in confusion and discouragement. If that same person, would take a moment to look, they would see that where I am now is miles from where I began. If they could see what occurred as a result of those times I fell to my knees—they would believe and never doubt, this is me, and I am where I need to be.

They will know that though this year, to the untrained eye, may look as though I’m lost— it isn't as it seems. If they follow the tracks, my footprints, they will see that I am, indeed, getting lost—lost deep inside my Saviors love. Lost in my love for Him.

So, I have peace, this silent night, that God has lead me here, and here I am—daily nearer to Him.

Good-bye 2010, it has definitely been a year of growth...and I am yet growing. **Grow me, Lord.**