for the love of 2014...

Looking back on 2014, it was the year of Ebola and missing planes and Taylor Swift and the selfie stick.

It was also the year where I started really following the Angels, began struggling with fear and worry, my rib started popping out of place routinely, had my wisdom teeth removed, gained two new roommates, lost 35 pounds, celebrated weddings and babies, mourned losses, took risks, went hydro-biking, read great books, learned leadership under a new boss, began substitute teaching, visited home for the first time in 3 years, got my first credit card, met weekly with a solid mentor, participated in Dressember and bought a couch.

I look back in 2014 and see the fullness of life; the things gained and lost, the joys and the hardships, the encouragement from friends and the hard conversations had, the excitement and the anxiety. FULL, a year that is bursting at the seams, a year that will most definitely bleed into the next.

This year my theme from the Lord was discipline, and holy Moses, was I challenged in that! In every area, mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally… my life was rocked by Christ; the theme came from a verse in Hebrews…

“No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening… its painful! But afterward, there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.” 

(12:11)

Little did I know, learning discipline would teach me the difference between faith and fear, the sovereignty of God, and how to trust and to become less of a control freak with my life and let Jesus take the wheel (thank you for the ever popular reference, Carrie Underwood).

This past year was filled to the brim with hardship and joy, and even though it was at sometimes painful, the Word of the Lord proves right; there is a peaceful harvest to be gleaned as I walk into 2015. I take the harvest of this past year into this next year, remembering all that I have been taught, all that I have been trained in. Am I saying that I have achieved righteous living? Not at all, this sinner has a LONG way to go my friends (and a lot of guilty pleasures to part with a.k.a. The Mindy Project). BUT, I am saying that this year has taught me more of what righteous living looks like, to discipline yourself in the Word, in wise counsel, in time management, in clean living and eating, in budgeting, in my resources.

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… the Word of the Lord proves right; there is a peaceful harvest to be gleaned as I walk into 2015…

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This year, I wrestled with God and walked away limping. My theology drastically changed because of that, in the best ways possible.

Don’t cast 2014 to the wayside, leaving it behind in the dust in light of a new year. Remember all the things He has done for you and through you this past year, because the person He molded during 2014 will be the same person He pulls into 2015.

(But lets leave Ebola in 2015, that thing needs to be left 

behind, for the love of all good things.)