2013.

When I look back on this year, I am in complete awe of God and am blown away by his grace and movement towards me. He took me from a place of deep pain and slowly touched my heart and began to stitch me back up in Kona. He began teaching me about sitting before him and simply enjoying his presence. And even though I can't spend hours in the prayer room at school, I've been able to still experience and enjoy his presence throughout the day. The presence of God. It fills me, and satisfies the emptiness I find inside myself at times. This semester. I am so incredibly thankful for relationships with professors, friends and peers. My Christian Thought class with Dr. Burge, my time with Dr. Vlachos, times of prayer with Ingrid & tuesday night prayer group, being a part of the OCO/being on YHM cabinet, my friendships with Steph & Kathryn, laughter and joy and feeling alive and young again, making thankful lists. All of it. 

Home - there is a shift and I am better able to see how God has changed me. I am overwhelmed by his grace and love for my family. More than ever before, I was hit with new revelations and a deeper awareness of the meaning behind Jesus's birth. On Christmas Eve, I laid in bed beside my sister with thoughts of my deep brokenness and the brokenness of my family. Ah, so this is why Jesus came to us. He knew the depth of this brokenness and came to restore, to heal. 

God is at work. I've been praying for my sister for almost 10 years and I feel like I have to rub my eyes because I'm beginning to see a little bit of what he is doing. I'm still thrown off by how God is working in my sister's heart and what she is learning these days. I don't think I ever doubted God's faithfulness, but it's like you pray for so long and expect to see answered prayers in the distant future.  He is at work right now, and I am reminded that his timing is good. She's 28 and starting classes at the U of U this monday. My mom graduated this past May and received her Masters of Divinity after years and years of sweat & blood. I guess I'm the boring one. ha ha. Anyways, I see my sister at a crossroads right now. The choice of change is there on one side and the temptations of an old life are on the other side. She talks to me about how God must be angry at her for all the decisions and choices she's made in the past decade or so. I've even more at awe that she even talks about God and acknowledges him. I'm also reminded that every single person is at a different stage in life and in a different place in their relationship with God. I see God's grace displayed so profoundly in my sister's life and I know that He will never let her go. 

My prayer for you is that you would experience the depth of God's love -it will come, because God never leaves us as we are. 

I am so incredibly thankful and I pray that 2014 would be a year where I'm able to swim in deeper waters. I want to experience more of God's love and more of his presence. I want to know the ins and outs of his heart and I definitely want him to continue changing me.

Peace out, 2013. Onto new adventures and increased delight in the Lord. God, you are good.