So it’s officially a brand new year! With brand new expectations, new hopes, new dreams, new goals. A new year often symbolizes a new season, a new opportunity to better our lives. The start of a new year is often a time of reflection, a time of reevaluating the successes and failures of the past year. For me, 2012 was… well disappointing. I faced more challenges than I ever expected, ones that I endure even now.  Despite countless “failures” of this last year, 2012 has been the most teachable. Through reflection, I've realized I have gained more than what I had initially hoped for through those “failures”.

It’s easy to set goals and resolutions before consulting with the will of God.  This past year God taught me what it really means to surrender. I learned how to trust God in some of the most difficult trials of my life. I’ve gain a deeper understanding of Christ. I know that my faith can survive the loss of what I cherish most. I know now that I’m stronger than what I believed I was. I got everything I forgot to ask for this past year… For that I’m grateful because it turns out those “failures” were exactly I needed. This year my only request is that God will finish the work He’s begun in me…. Wherever that leads.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,  because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4