“I find it interesting that this has been one of the best years of my career and the worst of my life,” Grande said. “A lot of people would look at someone in my position right now as an artist that could be at her peak and think, ‘She’s really got her sh** together, she’s really on it. She’s got it all.’ And I do, but as far as my personal life goes, I really have no idea what[…]I’m doing[…]and as of late I’ve discovered that it’s the things I’ve always had and the people I’ve always had that still make me the happiest.”
A year ago, I graduated from college. I got a new job. I moved almost a thousand miles away. I learned how to be an adult. I experienced so much love counteracted by heartbreak, grief and loneliness. I went to a foreign country for the first time. I planned a global conference. I’ve helped different families in minor or significant ways in over 80 different countries.
It’s been a crazy year.
In the midst of all those changes and challenges were a lot of tears. I learned a lot about me, and yet still know nothing at all.
Tears fell as I sat in my room a couple nights before my graduation as I stared at the cap and gown waiting to be worn across a platform to accept my degree.
Tears were shed on the interstate from Iowa to Virginia in my car full of all my belongings.
Tears spilled in the hall as the background echoed cheers at the close of the last session in Moscow, Russia.
Tears fell on a plane bound home to Iowa for a couple of weeks – a girl who once believed that heartbreak was purely metaphorical, found out it was actually quite physical and yet could only be healed by time and patience.
2018 showed me I am a constant work in progress, but aren’t we all?
Most importantly – I have learned to forgive. I learned to forgive others, myself and to accept the forgiveness Christ so freely offers me.
I have learned so much this year about love and forgiveness through my broken experiences. As Matt Heard said “The worst kind of pain is wasted pain”. So will I use my brokenness to push me into the next stage of life and grow me spiritually, mentally and emotionally and make me wiser? Or will I waste the pain and have it hinder my growth? Will it harden or strengthen my heart? Can I trust God to redeem my pain?
I settle my heart down and let the pain in. I will cast all my anxieties upon Him because He cares for me. He will lead me beside the still waters. He will restore my soul. He will lead me down a path of righteousness, but also a path of joy and peace.
Psalms 34:18 says:
“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit”
This year taught me love, patience and pain, but it also taught me how to understand and sympathize, it taught what it truly means to be selfless, but it also taught me how important it is to take care of myself – to take my God-sized needs to Christ, that in order to be a source of life, I need to have Jesus be my source of life first.
On the days that I couldn’t get out of bed, something so simple my sister said has stuck with me since “sometimes you have to do what is good for you, not what you want to do”.
I repeat these words on the many days I don’t want to work out. On the days I don’t want to leave my bed. On the days that I don’t want to eat a certain way. On the Sundays when I don’t feel like going to church. When I fall into my hermit-like tendencies. When praying is hard. When reading my Bible is about as unappealing as carrots (I greatly dislike carrots by the way).
In more ways than one I see how God interwove that theme into my life this year. Jesus saying “Sometimes I have to do what is good for you, not what you want me to.”
As Jeremiah 29:11 says:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
So thank you 2018; for all that you offered and took away; for all the people that came and went – and most importantly, to those I’ve always had and will never leave. 2018 made me realize that the people I have always had – are the ones that make me the happiest still and you can see some of them pictured above. I love these people. So much.
2019 is whispering on the threshold “it will be happier” as Tennyson says but I think I like T.S. Eliot’s quote better:
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.”
So thank you 2018.
Thank you, next.
My Awkward Little Corner 