2012

Current trends suggest that every year is both harder and more amazingly wonderful than the last. Such was true of dear 2012.

For time and sanity I'm going to be brief. Also, I'm going to try not to be sentimental, because this year was so packed and wonderful I could easily torment you with my feelings. ;-) And I feel like I already did that raving about various New York adventures. Then there was Aisha's wedding and Family Camp and Rachel's visit and a thousand other things that were so very close to perfect, they may be dangerous to talk about.

Here are twelve brief thoughts from last year in no order of importance. They are also thoughts I want to remember and remind myself of for shiny, new 2013.

1. Feed your brain always. When I feel dead, beat down, foggy-headed, what I probably need is a good dose of something thick and chewy like Ecclesiastes or John Donne.

2. History is one of the most exciting things in the world. The end.

Postscript- In history we see don't just what people believed but how they believed it, not just with their heads but with their hands, their feet, their blood, their souls.

3. I used to think that things needed to be saved, especially creativity or special moments, but now I know God is enough and way bigger than any plans or ideas I can possibly have in mind. God lavishes ridiculously and does not let us get over thrills, but only gives us deeper, crazier ones.

4. God cares about the fatherless, the widow, the orphan...the lonely, the hungry, the hurting. I know this because I have felt it, and I must be reminded because I need to care about these people too. Sometimes they are not who I thought.

5. God is about filling up. We should be about pouring out.

6. People are not trustworthy, but the Holy Spirit working in them is. The only important thing is the work of Jesus in someone. Not where they have been or what they have done. This is the only way to have a relationship of trust.

This was head knowledge for me. I say, in God we trust...but now I'm trying to live like it is true.

7. Don't tear it down. I need to care enough about it to build it up if I think something is wrong. Don't run over the people who are trying, instead dig in with them and get my hands dirty.

8. Jesus is the Mediator...of everything. He is the quickest way, and often the only way, between two people.

9. Our hearts should become bigger and more squishy with each sorrow and joy, not harder. Jesus has given us the answer to suffering and shown us the wildness of joy.

10. We're supposed to love in a way that means getting hurt. And we can afford it because we have all we need. Love like Jesus. Bleed.

11. The Church, the Body of Christ, my dear brothers and sisters, is a more massive blessing than I can ever fathom. God has taught me so much through you all, particularly you in my own physical church. Your impact on my life and the love you lavish on my often thick and ungrateful skull is quite beyond my comprehension. The conversations, encouragement, and exhortation I have been given this year has been a huge part of the complete, devastating blessing of 2012. God is so good. And He so often works through imperfect but loving, gracious hands.

12. The Gospel is freedom. Live and fight and dance in that.

Another reason to be happy winter is beating summer...

Dear Last Year, I'll Miss You.

Life, you are so busy, wonderful, and complicated
and
my God is good. Always.
So ends 2011.

To give this year a full review would be beyond human capabilities. It was, after all, just another year, but a full, blessed, previously unimaginable one. I want to write it all out and keep it forever...but that isn't feasible or probably helpful, so here are merely a few mildly random snapshots-

-Roadtrips with people I adore...windows down, music blaring, insane laughter until we howled in pain.

-Sitting on a dead redwood writing anything and everything on anything and everything.

-Scribbling clumsy poetry while knee deep in ocean waves.

-Powell's. Portland. I have no more words.

-Writting my main character's last words in St. James cemetery.

-Starting the thirteenth beginning of Where Loyalties Lie, aided by the epicness of Joe Hisaishi.

-Falling head over-heels in love with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Not in a creepy way, I assure you.

-Climbing hundreds of steps to see Gdansk from St. Mary's tower.

-Huddling in a circle on the floor while plenty of couches sat abandoned, staring at a candle while everything around us was dark in the rain and wind, laughing and talking with my sisters until.... an undisclosed hour.

-Walking down the beach with both of my sisters and realizing that we did, in fact, grow up.
At least so it appears.

-Watching dear friends fall in love, get engaged, get married, show the world that love isn't what it thinks it is... it's something bigger, more terrifying, more wonderful, harder, more rewarding.

-Singing Psalm 34 with my two year old niece. One of the cutest most beautiful things ever.

-Staring at the stars from an Idaho golf course. Perfect moment chiastically flanked by sprinkler attacks.

-Being wildly proud of my little sister who graduated with flying colors. Then sniffing (aka sobbing) over Chipotle guacamole all the way home for no apparent reason. My poor mother.

-Sitting on the hard floor in our dark room clad in a sweater big enough for you, your laptop, and your pillow pet and writing pathetic prose until you think you can finally sleep...or the sunlight creeps through the blinds and tells you the moment you'd been madly chasing is gone.

-Singing everywhere possible in Poland.
Spending two weeks with an fantastic group of people. Learning to talk and walk outside my comfort zone. Gaudete will never be the same, you most wonderful, lovable, memorable, beautiful hymn!

Most goose-bumpy vivid moment of the year (possibly ever)- singing We all Believe in Malbrock Castle. No way to explain it.

-Walking through silent Gdanks trying to remember all of Hamlet and wishing it could last forever. Then staying up all night with Rachel the magnificent...trying to make it last forever.

-Seeing Les Miserables live. Burst into tears after the first chords. Screamed until I was hoarse at the end.

-Driving the car with leather gloves. Yes, this was on my bucket list.

-Watching my brother marry the woman of his dreams. Miss my brother, glad he has the rest of him now. :-)

-Rereading Chesterton's Orthodoxy...three times. Rocked my world, smacked me on the head, and then had me running around the back yard with my best banshee impressions, picking roses with bare hands, and jumping on the trampoline with a retarded grin.

-Many, many late night conversations when the only options are honesty and insanity.

-Seeing people and doing things I didn't think were possible.
So thankful for friends and for family and for family that are friends and friends that are truly family.

Lessons learned and learning...

-You go places. You meet people. You leave. You miss people.
It hurts.

-Relationships take work. Hard work. Sweat, tears, and lots of laughter.

-Never take myself too seriously and never take what I'm about too lightly.

-Faith isn't a band-aid.
It's more like an intensifier.
Sorrow hurts like hell.
Joy can turn you into a wild lunatic...or make you want to sit completely still in a corner and wonder until your head explodes.
It can also make you sick. And want to be sick forever.

-Real, tangible Hope that you can touch, feel, and taste gives you the highest high of all.

-Light shines whether we have the sense to look for it or not.

Welcome 2012.
What adventures and craziness can you possibly hold that will outshine last year? I'm pretty sure I'm unprepared, but I'm ready. :-)

Praise to a God beyond our imagination for the plans He has had for us since the beginning of this wonderful, swirling, terrifying, exhilarating world.