ooh, when the sun comes up

I’ve become an old woman. You know, one of those old women who take time to reflect on the old year before the new one begins--the comings and goings, the things that God taught me, and hesitantly project my wishes and dreams for next year; one of those old women who wants to go around the table and talk about the same things with the people I love. In my heart it feels as if, when the ball drops tonight, 2008 will in so many ways, come to a close. The confetti will fall and we will welcome 2009 joyfully. I’m ready for 2009. I’m excited for it, I’m anxiously awaiting midnight, when we’ll bang pots and pans and dance around in our party hats, celebrating the new year and all of the potential that it holds.

At this exact moment, one year ago, I was cleaning up somebody else’s vomit, and was in the midst of the very worst, the darkest, period of my struggle with anxiety. 2008 began with fear and insecurity, not just in myself, but in relationships and circumstances and life. It feels so good to know that, one year and a long journey later, I will be celebrating with my very best friends, eating Chili dogs, and that, throughout the course of the year, things have changed so dramatically that I sometimes can’t even believe it.

I learned a lot this year. I had to. I learned a lot about myself and about God and about relationships; I learned a lot about prayer and about grace; I faltered and fell many, many times, and, this year, I was reminded time and time again of my humanity, of my imperfections. I made plans, only to have them radically altered or fall apart completely; I made some great decisions, and I made some weird ones; I had things figured out, and then, it became so clear that I didn’t. I learned my strengths and I really learned my weaknesses. People came in and out of my life, like a rotating door. The people in my life twelve, nine, six, even three months ago, have come and gone, some leaving deep ruts in my heart and imprints on my life, some gone without a trace. This year was a rollercoaster, a toss-up. It feels a bit like 2008 was a year of constant change, in the strangest ways. Physical location changed multiple times, people changed, relationships changed, I changed. To be completely honest, it was an exhausting year, with very little time for rest. It was a year filled with beautiful struggle, with anxiety and heartbreak and fear that led me straight into the heart of God. And it altered my heart along the way. I wouldn’t change it one bit. I am left at the end of 2008 with the feeling that tomorrow, I am starting fresh.

I know that when I wake up tomorrow morning, things will be the same. I’ll still wake up at 11:00 and go downstairs for my usual bowl of Fruit Loops. I don’t concern myself with silly New Year’s Resolutions like “eat healthy” or “exercise more,” which I am sure to break. But I do have hope for the new things, the fun things, the wonderful things that are on the horizon. I can peer a ways into the future and tell you that 2009 absolutely, without a doubt, holds the wedding of my best friend, holds applications for graduate school, and holds an old school that feels new. Our family will have a series of very significant birthday parties, and I will have some sort of a summer adventure. Those things are marked in the calendar. But what excites me more than solidified dates are the little things, peppered here and there, that make my life, and my year truly exciting, truly blessed.

I constantly wonder what 2009 will hold. I wonder, and hold out hope for the people I will meet and the things I will do, the places I will go and the adventures that await me. I wonder if 2009 will be the year that I finally decide my major, of if it will be the year that I meet my husband (and then throw up because this is simultaneously the most exciting and scariest thing imaginable), or if this will be the year that I fall crazily in love, and I wonder how God will surprise me with Himself next year. I already feel the excitement bubbling up inside me.
If I could, I would predict a year of community and growth and laughter and wonder. I predict a year filled with wide-eyed wonder at the goodness of Jesus, and an even bigger movement for social justice. I predict a year filled with dinner parties turned into worship nights and a year filled with provision and restoration and intimacy with Jesus. I predict rest and an ever-growing sense of family and security. I predict a year where I wear my “special occasion” perfume for more than special occasions. I predict a year filled with creativity and energy, beauty and inspiration. I predict experiences and circumstances that push us further and further into God Himself, in the best way. I predict joy and praise and love. I predict that this year, God will become our reality, and that we will accept nothing less.

I predict these hopes and dreams for my life, my family, my community, my world.
Maybe this will be the year that we come awake.