2015. the year of depth and growth, finding community, seeking joy, and living in freedom.
JANUARY: was packing up the materialistic part of our lives and putting it in boxes and a semi trailer. it was moving to the mountains for the winter and seeing the snow covered peaks outside my window (if I leaned just far enough over on the side of the bed) every morning. it was library book hauls and big cups of coffee and cheesy hallmark movies. it was nights of deep thinking and feelings and nostalgia. and it sounded like bethel music's new album.
FEBRUARY: was filled with the warmest bit of winter. it was waking up to snow on my seventeenth birthday and pretending to be a dancing queen. it was coffee in a sleepy tourist town and national park days in the snow. it was also spending a lot of time in our little rental condo kitchen trying new recipes and coming to the realization that i should never (under any circumstances) pack my chef's knife.
MARCH: was learning how to cling to the faithful One. it was mornings of watching the earliest sun rays spread across my mountain and wonder in the movement of light. it was spending a lot of time writing papers, reports, and living the life of a senior. and a lot more tea and coffee were included.
APRIL: was off to new adventures in washington at the Delight retreat. it was hugging people for the first time and worshiping together and experiencing community. it was learning the power of Jesus in breaking chains and walking in freedom from fear. "all fear removed, I breath you in, I lean into your love." it was falling in love with seattle even though i only had the fly-by and airport version. it was spring days with windows open and warm light and our last days in the mountains before packing up our lives again.
MAY: was cramming for final exams. it was GRADUATING HIGH SCHOOL (low-key chill. not.) with 400 other students in florida. it was a week of beautiful beautiful moments with all of my cousins and seeing God work and move ways i have never seen or experienced before and then getting to see FOUR of my cousins surrender their lives to Him at 3:00 a.m. on the night He showed up. I am now confident that He speaks in a language of details and He is always moving and working in ways we are entirely unaware of. // "God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them." - John Piper
JUNE: was walking into new adventures with new people and a new atmosphere by starting the last traditional basic semester of Ellerslie Discipleship Training. it was realizing the beauty of the fullness of the Gospel and glimpsing who i am without the grace and righteousness of Jesus Christ. it was the stripping down of self and realizing hard things. it was new-found friendships, the sweetest of roommates and suitemates and laugher and many inside jokes.
"The fact that you are desiring God is a sure sign that He is desiring you." - Eric Ludy
JULY: was declarations of position, surrender, learning humility, joy that abounds, and grace that abounds even more. it was victory and days that felt like autumn and quilts and tea on porches. it was discovering that Jesus actually is the eternal life i've been given and chasing after Him every day for the rest of my life is the biggest adventure i could ever hope to live. it was realizing the preciousness of my Jesus and all that He has done and learning how to cling tightly to that.
AUGUST: was golden days filled with worship and daily grace (especially with 5 a.m. mornings ;) ) and the very best kind of people. it was peach shakes with my roommates and finding His faithfulness spread over my life like butter on toast. it was soaking in the depths of the Word of God daily and especially at 1 a.m. when Jesus is blowing your mind (and feeling like my jennie says "i feel like i'm drowning in a kiddie pool with my floaties on." #laughingcryingemoji)
SEPTEMBER: was dorm baking at 1 am during late night studies. it was crazy shenanigans and making memories and building friendships that will last forever. it was friends who will spend 45 minutes of their morning straightening your hair for the first time and afternoons making you iced coffee and making nests out of your bed. i can't even express how full of laughter and life and love those days were- all the loud and crazy kitchen crew cleanups, all the warm smiles, all the night-time campus walks, all the early morning prayer times, all the coffee....
i am breathing out all that i am, and breathing in all that He is.
OCTOBER: was the most beautiful and the hardest month of 2015. it's strange because that just feels like an oxymoron, but it was the reality. bittersweet. it was cherishing the community that had become family. i still tear up over the last two weeks of our time together because they were so inexpressively beautiful. then it was three days of goodbyes that felt like open heart surgery, but as Pooh says- "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." it was the ellipses of 16 weeks. 112 days. of pursuing Jesus and doing life together. october stretched and hurt. and this little paragraphs isn't even scraping the surface of what is in my heart. "even so, it is well."
NOVEMBER: was finding the daily grind. it was sleeping in for the first time in months and adjusting to new atmospheres and new places. it was the strangeness of waking up and not seeing the bunkbed bottom or the dorm room that had become home all summer and autumn. it was the strange aching feeling of not knowing what is familiar. it was being back at home with my family again and realizing how much i missed laughing hysterically over stupid things in the kitchen at 9 o'clock at night. and hearing their voices. it was flying back to one of my favorites places, washington, to seek Jesus with some of my favorite girls and those days were filled with the most precious times of good deep soul talks, belly laughter, worship, learning what it means to be brave enough, and hearing truth being spoken boldly. [delight and be brave] november was hard and good and somehow that was all ugly and beautiful at the same time.
DECEMBER: was SO MUCH CHRISTMAS MUSIC. it was learning to be grateful for little things which are actually much bigger than you think- water from a well, doors in a house, a washing machine at home, a dryer. it was repeatedly falling flat on my face in failure and- honestly, feeling frustration. a lot. it was learning to deal with expectations and realizations and how things aren't always what you think they'll be and the good in that. December, being the last month of the year, cannot help but make us think of what is to come." - Fennel Hudson it was remembering grace, remembering His love, and remembering surrender.
and now.
there are new beginnings ahead, new adventures to find, new hearts to love deeply, old hearts to cherish just as deeply, the same steadfast Love to dwell in, and the same Truth to speak. He is faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. (2 timothy 2:13)
xoxo. -marcia
[it's so hard for me to just press "publish" on this because i feel like i didn't even begin to express how beautiful 2015 was... i actually have no adequate words. what a Jesus! // also: all photographs are from my phone, i haven't even began to organize all my dslr photos from 2015. whoops. ]
