I've been trying to write this for over three weeks, started it three or four times. Usually these posts have been very simple to write, but this one is proving to be a bit of a challenge.
This past year has been a bit of a whirlwind. My divorce was finalized at the end of year 30, and so year 31 looked as if it was going to be settling into the new normal, unfortunately that has not been the case. The legal battle has continued to drag out, still wondering why a lot of the time, but hopefully before I turn 33 this will all finally be over. If would appreciate your prayers as this moves towards what will hopefully be the final conclusion to that chapter of my life, as well as this next phase I'm about to enter into.
Aside from that, much of this past year has felt like I've been in a non-stop state of moving. For most of this past year I was working four ten hour days, and then spending my time Friday to Sunday with my girls, and trying to fit school in there between all of that. It's been a pretty exhausting year, but I've loved the time I've had with my girls and wouldn't trade any of it. We've hiked a lot, taken some great day trips to Michigan, Kentucky, and around Ohio, watched Frozen and Moana more times than I can count, and been on a ton of daddy daughter dates. I've loved every second of it.
This year has been good for me personally. This past year marked the end of the first stage of my journey towards intentional self-discovery. For three years I have been focused on identity, and over the summer at our annual retreat I took part in a ceremony which marked the end of this first stage. It was a meaningful and significant moment that I needed, and I'm glad I got to share it with my brothers. You can read more about this in the posts I wrote back in August (Journey parts 1, 2, and 3).
As this first stage, the identity stage, has wrapped up my mind has been trying to focus on the next aspect, what I'm calling the passion stage. I didn't end up doing my annual vision quest this year, life just didn't allow for it this summer, and when it did the weather didn't cooperate, but in spite of not being able to spend a night alone with God in the woods, He did give me some insight into how my focus has been off. I took an evening over the summer and went and sat in my hammock (I bought a hammock this year) by a lake as the sun was setting. I made some notes on identity, trying to capture everything I had come to understand about it over the past three years, and then I tried to write about the next stages, Passion and Destiny, but found myself getting stuck, especially when it came to Passion. In that moment I realized that this is where God and I are going next.
In the past year, I've really began to enjoy the process more. Part of me still gets impatient at times and would love to speed through to the end, but more an more I've found myself enjoying the moment, finding contentment in the here and now, and that has brought a lot of freedom and joy. My mind still goes a year, or 20, down the road, but I've learned to not let myself get so caught up in the future that I sacrifice today, and that has been so good for my soul.
As I enter this next year of life, I'm looking at some big changes. I'll be wrapping up my graduate studies after five years, and I'm actually planning on going to commencement, although I can't figure out why the university planned it for Mother's Day weekend. With the pending changes as a result of these ongoing legal issues I'm not sure where my life will take me after that, I've got a couple ideas of where I'd like to end up, a bit of vision for what I think would be cool based on the vision I feel that God has given me, but I'm trying to not get so caught up with that to the point where I sacrifice the moment.
A lot has changed in the past twelve months, and a lot more is going to change in the next twelve. I'm curious to see what I report at 33.
Fight the lion, 1 Peter 5.1-11
TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!
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