the words that carry the hope

• only love can save us all
• thirty before thirty
• [almost] 100 things

01-01-10

ghosts of new years past

My oldest friend told me the other day that I am a different person now.  She means in a good way…different good, different because He made me a new creation.  Different, because these days, I am becoming more and more comfortable with myself.  Part of that, I think, comes with surrounding myself with people whose love for me is so unconditional.  I am blown away by the depths of it.  I am self-admittedly crazy, but they know it and embrace it.  Encourage it even, because the Crazy is what helps me be, well…me.  And it’s community, of course, but a continuation of the community I had in New York.  God is building on that community here, and I never thought that was possible.  I can barely wrap my mind around it.

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I remember dates.  I remember the day I left for China when we stayed for a while (Sept 5, 2004) and the day I moved to New York (June 15, 2006) and the day I left (June 1, 2009).  I remember the day I started my current job (June 8, 2009).  I remember lots of dates that I wish I wouldn’t remember, like my anniversary with my high school boyfriend (I mean who wants to remember that?  But I can’t help it, I do…June 5,1998 if you were curious).  I remember the day my mom, my sister and I moved out of my childhood home (March 7, 1998), officially beginning my parents’ separation and subsequent divorce.  I remember the date of the car wreck we were in my junior year of high school (November 30, 1997…and for the record, it’s a miracle none of us were seriously hurt).

I say this because New Years Day makes me sentimental…i guess since I am a date person, a quantifier…I know I’ve said it before:  anniversaries – dates, i guess – are important to me. i like to measure time that way. i like to measure growth that way. i love to look back at the last year or two and compare them to now.  And I love to look back and see how far I have come…but more-so how far He has brought me, how He has lifted me from the pit of destruction (Psalm 40).

Six years ago, everything changed on New Year’s Eve.  I was driving back from Charleston, South Carolina with tears streaming down my face.  On the phone with my best friend.  God shook us that day, pointed us to Him.  Revealed that there was more.  That there was a different story than the one we were currently living.  And instead of ignoring Him like I had for several years, I listened.  And everything changed.

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I felt sad last weekend.  I said this to my mom before I realized what I was saying:

I guess it’s hard for me to be sad because i’m happy so often…sadness is a different feeling for me.

Last night I looked around and realized that none of it would have been possible had God not broken my heart six years ago.  The life I now have is a direct result of that day.  And I am grateful that out of ashes comes beauty, because my life is beautiful.