wrap up

Real joy.  Real pain.  Real hope.  Real sorrow.

I've felt all of these over the course of the past months.  It was a long and difficult fall which turned into a slightly better but still stressful winter.

I don't know if I've ever experienced the heights and depths of emotions as I have through this most recent time.  Joy so sweet I could taste it and wished it would last forever.  Sorrow so all-consuming that I couldn't believe it was happening to me.

I haven't blogged since September with any consistency.  I haven't felt like it, plain and simple.  When God's putting you through the spin cycle of the washing machine and you spend days hoping for that final rinse to come on so the whole thing can be over, it's hard to find the joy of anything to write about. 

I've been the encourager needing encouragement.  The one who usually offers hope needing hope to come my way.

And it did.

It came through unexpected friends.  As I was vulnerable with them, they were equally open and vulnerable with me and they shared their experiences that so closely matched mine, I knew it had to be of God.  While it didn't answer my situation, it gave me hope and possibility and a light at the end of the tunnel. To know others have walked the dark waters where you are gives you something to hold on to, even if it doesn't work out the same for you in the end.

Now I am at the end of December.  I am kissing 2010 goodbye and tossing it aside as fast as I can.  But if it hadn't been the 2010 it was, I wouldn't have grown.  If it hadn't been the 2010 it was,  I wouldn't have been called to trust.  If it hadn't been the 2010 it was, I wouldn't know the trials and their positive outcomes as I do.

God never wastes a hurt.  I pray that what I've journeyed through this past year will be helpful to someone else in 2011.  I pray that the highs and lows of the waves that tossed me about will turn into calmer seas.

I walk into 2011 a different person because of what I watched God do in 2010. 

And I wouldn't trade it for anything.