As 2018 is wrapping up my mind is moving towards this next year. In all honesty, my mind has been on this next year for a while. For half a decade my mind has seen 2019 as a transition year, but in the past five years a lot of other transitions have taken place to cement that this next year is going to be somewhat defining.
In 2019 I will complete grad school. I started this chapter of my academic journey in August 2014, fully intending for this to be the end of my formal classroom education. Back then I was focused on reentering full time church ministry as a pastor sometime in 2020, but that is no longer where my mind is at. I completed my first Master's degree in 2017, which really didn't feel like that big of an achievement since I was just rolling my credits into my M.Div, but now that this one is almost done, I'm really starting to look forward to the completion of grad school, I'm even planning to go to commencement, and really hoping I get to take my girls with me.
2019 will hopefully mark another ending. My divorce was finalized in October 2017, and I thought that was going to be the end of things, with my life transitioning to the next stage of being a single parent, working with my ex-wife to do what is best for our two girls. That was my plan, but it hasn't played out. I ended up having to file a contempt against my ex-wife early this year, and the legal process has continued to drag out, and add up, all year. We have another hearing this week, and though it most likely isn't going to conclude anything, hopefully it is one step closer and things will wrap up early in the year. I'm really ready for all of this legal junk to be done, it's been a financial burden, as well as a mental, emotional, possibly physical at times, and I hate that I've had to pour so much time, money, and energy into this. But, 2019 should mark the final conclusion of it, and hopefully I can move on to the next stage of life, and start creating again.
In 2019 my oldest daughter starts kindergarten, yeah that's crazy, and so depending on happens with the court stuff I'll probably be moving in order to be able to be closer and more involved in my girls lives. This has been something I've been prevented from doing due to some obligations with work, but this year those will all be met, and it will most likely be time to move on to what's next. This scares me a little bit, not going to lie. I've got a job that financially provides, is very generous with retirement contributions, and provides numerous other benefits, it has been a true blessing and has helped me get where I am. The possibility of stepping out of that is a little nerve wracking, but at the same time, I'm feeling an increasing sense of completion, and if 2019 brings about a completion, then it will be time to move forward.
I feel like 2019 is going to be a year of personal growth. 2018 marked the end of a three year search for identity, and since the retreat were I had a passage ceremony my mind has been on the next stage, passion. For so long I misunderstood what this stage looked like, and part of me still isn't sure what this looks like, but the key that I've realized is that passion is about recovery. I've been specifically focused on this for the past few months, but only recently have I started to wrap my mind around what this looks like for me personally. Identity took me three years to really discover, understand, and embody, and part of me thinks that this next stage may have a similar timeline. What I have realized so far has been good, but I know it is merely the beginning, and I'm looking forward to what this next year is going to teach me.
2019 holds some completions, some beginnings, and a lot of uncertainty. This has been a year I've been waiting for, though my life has changed a lot since I started looking forward to it. It's hard to believe that the time has come to take some of these steps, but I know that this is what I have been working towards these past five years. So as one chapter wraps up, we turn the page to see what the next one holds.
Fight the lion, 1 Peter 5.1-11
TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!
