- Reflect: dear 2015 -

Dear 2015, 

The shadows have replaced the sunlight filtering in my window, and the sun has started to set. It's your last night here, and the thought as I just wrote it out has given me a shiver of melancholy coupled with a shiver of sudden shock and joy. Imagine that, 2015. You've given me enough emotions and feelings and a torrent of reminders of my God's grace to last a lifetime, and yet in the last ten hours of your existence you send me another. How generous of you. 

To be completely frank with you, hmm. W

here do I start? 

You were hard. 

Tough. 

There were days you dragged, and other months you flew faster than I ever dreamed or wanted you to. 

You were a beautiful year of my Lord shining His grace on my life through the times of joy and the seasons of struggle. 

You were the year of arise. 

You were a year of transformation. Discovery. Change- oh, so much change, but it was good and wonderful. You were a year of new boundaries- learning new boundaries as placed by my Savior, instead of those self-deprecating self-inflicted chains. You were a year of learning Love again, & holding on to it. You were a year of family and new family. 

You were a year filled with so many adventures and of stepping out of my comfort zone in a new and undiscovered way. 

You were a year filled with new places and the most wonderfully new faces I think I've ever met before in my life. You were a year of stitching up my heart more than a few times, as some walked in and out for a brief season. Sometimes I believed lies. 

It was in learning that what I believe in my heart and mind affects so much more than I think I know. It was learning that perhaps I know nothing at all except His constance. 

2015, it was during your earlier months that I learned that  I can't presume that I have anything to give...but I can draw from the well that never runs dry. 

You were filled with sleepless nights and wondering hours. You were...ah yes. You were a year of learning. Filled with it. Forget the academic learning, though I must admit you were definitely one filled with that as well; but this learning was the different kind. You were a year of learning new definitions of grace, of learning myself. Of learning love. Of learning that the countless times I felt like I failed there is that handful of people to come alongside my heart (since my extra family isn't necessarily within driving distance), and give me the courage to fail 1,000 times + 1. And those people are the ones that remind me that it's not failure when you've lived another day to try again, and to remind me who I am in Christ, even when I didn't see it myself. And those people were the most beautiful gems of this year. 

And in all this, 2015, you were a miracle. 

I'm leaving you with a heart that is both filled overflowing and yet filled with an ever-lingering wondering. There's an unknown on the horizon. And yet I'm filled more with that hopefulness. There's already a plan of sorts for the upcoming next twelve months- but who knows? I'm hopeful that this new year will be more of seeking the face of my Jesus. More falling in love with Him. That what's been broken is and will continue to be restored. Being filled with all the fullness of our God so that even I have something to give to this world. This is my prayer for all of us. 

Cheers to you. You were an odd, sometimes whirl-wind confusing, very dear, and goodness knows a time of rich growing and deepening roots while loosening others. I can't stop time, but I can turn moments into memories. 

Page 365.

I'm ready to close this book. 

But oh, it was good. 

Here's to the next chapter. 

With love,

Sierra