Reflection on 2012

At the end of 2011, I felt completely done.  Some events from that year had evoked large amounts of change while other things maintained the frustrating sameness from years before.  So when I made my resolutions for 2012, they weren't the far-reaching and unachievable goals from the years previous.  I just didn't feel like I could handle the cycle of failure in which I'd felt stuck.

But several far-reaching and unachievable things happened in 2012.

First of all, I found myself a bit more relaxed in 2012.  Even though I didn't pray for it, God granted me the serenity to accept the things I could not change and the courage to change the things I could.  And in His grand sense of humor, He started with the very thing I swore I'd never do:  running.

I didn't become a marathoner.  Nor did we actually get the opportunity to run that 5K.  Other things blockaded that particular plan, but we did train consistently.  In fact, it's one of the things I've missed in the last few months.  And, just like the CCL promised, I didn't die.  And I won't die when we return to training after the birth of our babies.  (Have I mentioned the CCL is also expecting?)

Oddly, I was willing to bend my knee to God's authority in a hundred different ways, but He managed to address the parts I had sanctioned as untouchable--even if I had sanctioned them unknowingly.

Like wallowing in my circumstances.

Early in our Made to Crave journey, I decided to quit because the early results were the same as every early result I had ever gotten from a diet plan:  frustration.  Then God asked me to do something I'd never really done before:  believe in His work in me.  Essentially, that meant maintaining a sense of consistency because God had called me to obedience--not because I was deriving some immediate sense of satisfaction from my actions.

In the last year, I learned a lot about needing.  I learned a lot about God's provision.  And in my journey to find peace with my body and commit to continued obedience, I discovered that I probably wouldn't achieve the same goals everyone else in my group was achieving.  God gave me something else instead.

I got pregnant.

In 2013, I will become a mother.  Favorite and I will celebrate 10 years of marriage.  Life is going to change.

But given that I spent the better part of a year working toward change (albeit, a different change than this one), I'm pretty excited.

I'm working on my Resolutions for 2013, and I intend to share a few pictures and stories from Christmas break (including a completely hilarious--and non-sexual--story about KY warming liquid).  Maybe that will happen by the end of the week. 

For now, I have a date with Favorite and my parents. 

The Hobbit awaits.