Reflecting on 2013

I can't honestly say that my brain has registered this whole ¨New Year¨ thing. It will be January 1, 2014 in an hour, and I am still processing that it is December. 2013 has come and gone so quickly, yet I feel that the past 365 days could have easily contained several years.

This year was the first year of my whole adult life (which I count as having started the day I found out I was pregnant with Leilani) in which I was not smothered under the nauseating weight of anxiety, or troubled by wafting depression. Jesus killed it dead, and it stayed in the ground this year. It feels like the color yellow. All the time. Sometimes things are a little mustardy, less chipper and bright, but still savory. But usually, if I close my eyes, I can breathe deep and feel Yellow. Bright, alive, promising and joy. I saw sunlight dance on the dust this year, I felt the beauty in pain this year, I tasted the delicious of the Goodness of the Lord and was filled by it in ways I never have been before.

This year, I met my Beanboy, and have watched him grow from a tiny raisiny infant into a full fledged Boy child. I have realized that my toddler truly isn't a toddler anymore, she has sprouted into a preschooler, with strong opinions and long legs and delightful vocabulary. My children are growing up, and this year, I really noticed. I love these little years. I don't think I realized it until this year. I love my babies and it tugs painfully on my heart sometimes to see their beautiful faces and glimpse a whisper of their grown-up selves. I know I will embrace every stage of their rapid ascent into adulthood and independence, but for now I am savoring their round cheeks and praying for a heart that remembers these moments.

I think I also met my husband this year. Is that weird? That sounds strange. But I think I really did. I married this great guy several years ago and I thought he was pretty awesome, but I think that the Lord gave me the gift of new eyes, because the man I live life with looks totally different to me lately. Its like I was living in a 3D movie without the glasses. Then all of a sudden, I put a pair on, and those weird lines on the side of things made sense and the fuzzy squiggly guy that was walking around all far away popped off the screen in nearby, colorful clarity. I am gaining new understanding of the details that make him so perfectly him, and I am realizing more every day how sweetly the Lord has loved me in His gift of Ryan. This was and is a big deal.

The biggest thing though? The biggest thing was Satisfied. I asked Jesus to give me a word this year, a word to focus on and learn about. And He gave me Satisfied. He told me that I needed to know that He alone is enough to Satisfy my soul. Satisfaction goes beyond learning to be content. Contentment implies that one has found oneself in a circumstance or situation, and chosen to be at peace with it. To me, Satisfaction starts with choosing the situation and circumstance itself. Good or bad. I needed to learn not to accept whatever the Lord brought my way, I needed to learn instead to want it. My soul could not be satisfied by merely accepting that His will, His will had to become my will. I needed to learn how to count everything as loss compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. And that meant that I needed to learn how to embrace some hard things because it meant embracing Jesus.

So I asked Him to fill all the achy, empty places of my soul, and He did. When I needed rest, He satisfied. When I was lonely, He satisfied. When I wanted to be held, He satisfied. When I needed to be understood, He satisfied. When I needed to know that I was adored and pursued and valued, He satisfied. The spiritual, the physical, the mundane and the extraordinary. Every moment in which I found myself discontent or wanting, He. Satisfied. I think this word will follow me through the rest of my life. I forget it so quickly and I need to be reminded of it daily. There is enough truth in Satisfied to feast on forever, and after a year of meditating on it, I am ready to take it with me into this year too.

So this year was a big year for me. A year of new, a year of yellow, a year of fresh and a year of Satisfaction in Christ. I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and I am truly thankful for all of the joy that He brought my way in 2013.