It’s been a whole year.

---

A year since I walked across that stage.

A year since the declaration that I would “spend this time as a creative” came spilling hesitantly out of my mouth.

Twelve full months of a lot of growth and hard conversations that usually ended in tears.

Twelve full months of so much uprooting, shifting, restlessness with just the same amount of stillness. Twelve months overflowing with tears, maybe a little too much wine, a lot of prayers and even more tears.

Twelve months that asked me, Who am I? Who do I want to be? How do I want to get there?

Twelve months of dreaming bigger, dreaming so big it terrified me. It’s been a year of running with hands wide open in every possible direction my feet could get to. A year of God was that you? Nope definitely not you. A year of discernment, the clearest and strongest sense of knowing that surpassed my sometimes very blind eye.

Twelve months of yes, a lot of yes and maybe too much yes.

So much has happened: heartbreak, some really good firsts, new poems written, a handful of “I’m sorrys”, decisions made out of selfishness, out of codependency, out of anxiousness. People held my hand, let me nap on their couches, let me hold their babies to stay level. People welcomed me into their homes, extended grace and loved me hot mess and all.

It’s been a whole year, one of the good ones, challenging and honestly really hard. Filled with more goodness than I could have ever planned. A year where, home? Home would have been the safe option, the comfortable option but learning that’s not what I was built for. That I thrive best  in all the areas completely outside of my comfort zone. I think we all do, thrive in the places we convince ourselves not to go because there’s too much fear, too much uncertainty, too much of something. We thrive in the places where the initial feelings of fear will seem as though they are great but will never amount to the goodness and growth we will experience once we’re in it, once we go through it.

A year of hell and high water.

A year of WHAT IN THE WORLD AM I DOING?!

The year of OH MY GOSH—this was the best thing ever.

 

A year of WOW, God you’re so cool but also a year of wait–hold up, you want me to do wha?! Go where?! A year of almost becoming a Jonah repeat but knowing there’s no running from this.

I found myself in this year, the strength of myself, the voice God that has been roaring up within me and I finally stopped being so afraid of what it would say.

The year I heard God so very clearly say,

This, this my daughter is what I have made you for.

For right now, for spilling, for opening your mouth and letting me speak through you.

This was the year of knowing purpose, knowing it like no other but still doubting, still hesitating, still sometimes wanting to pack up and go home (literally said that today). Still wanting to grab the practical and live in the safety. Every year I am being continuously wrecked and I know that’s a very “christian” term to use. Wrecked, meaning during that specific encounter, in that experience, something within you shifted, changed and there’s no way you can go back to before. I stuck my foot in the creative pool this year and everything related to “normalcy” makes me cringe a little—a lot. I’ve had to check my pride a lot because working and being your own boss has a way of making you feel like the world is kind of in your own hands and there will be so many reality checks to remind you that it is absolutely not.

---

It has been a year and oh what a year.

Sometimes, God will show us snippets of where he will take us. He will give us dreams reflecting the later, what’s to come and how he will work through us. That doesn’t mean right now, that doesn’t mean tomorrow — the best part of showing us is so that he can show us the work that happens in between, the beauty of the process. That’s what this year was and I’m sure next year will be too: the process, the beauty of it all, the shifting, the wrecking and even still the reminder that oh yes, this is exactly where I should be.