Looking back on 2019, I'm confident in saying it's been a full and difficult year. Career, marriage, parenting and health strain have marked this past year as particularly challenging. It has been the hard work that comes with tilling soil and planting seeds, and I'm hopeful it will one day produce a full harvest.
This is also the marked end of a decade (one for me that spanned 21-31). And one where I can't begin to process the number of life-changing moments and their impact.
Here are a few of my past decade's moments:
My first overseas mission trip.
The breakup of a long-term serious relationship.
Depression.
Graduation from college.
The start of my career.
An engagement.
Marriage.
Two children.
Two more college graduations (my husband's).
Sending one kiddo to Pre-K.
Multiple job moves.
Multiple church moves.
Multiple home moves.
A few family health scares.
Buying our first home.
So much. So much life, so much loss, so many lessons.
Considering it all makes me grateful to be here, in this moment, but also incredibly humbled that God would carry me through it all. As I look at some of the things on this list, and think of others intentionally left off, I can't help but be awed and wonder how I would have made it without Him.
His grace has been the only thing I can look to that has kept me. And the only thing I know will continue to keep me.
As you look back and ahead, don't forget to look at here and now. Right where you're standing, whether it's muck and mire, or joy and elation, He's in it all. He will sustain you, guard you, carry you ... it's promised.
Whatever the next decade holds for you, whatever it holds for me, we can take comfort in the fact that while our circumstances are ever-changing, our Savior is ever-constant. Never wavering in His mercy or compassion or loving kindness toward us in this world.
"Remember Jesus Christ ... If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself."
2 Timothy 3:8, 11-13
—Whitney