The Close of a Year

I've been wanting to post about 2012 for a while now... but when somehow the entire poem I put my heart into vanished from the blogger drafts, I sort of gave up.

So I don't have a lovely original poem for you about this incredible and terrifying past year. Sorry. Instead, with my vanity rather smushed, I offer you the words of another instead. (Honestly I think they apply to my year almost better than anything I could've written!)

These words are from a song titled "The Beauty and the Tragedy" by David Hodges.

"For I am finding out that love
Will kill and save me
Taking the dreams that made me up
And tearing them away.
But the same love will take this heart
That's barely breathing
And fill it with hope beyond the stars..."

Whose love is this? God's. And yet is has a sort of double meaning. I recall writing in my journal, shortly after Josh died, " I didn't know it hurt so bad to love." The strong, deep love of a close friendship killed me, in a way. Because God took my dreams and literally tore them away.

But the story doesn't end there. My merciful Creator took my barely breathing heart... And filled it with hope. Many different kinds of hope - the grandest of which had already been mine from before my birth. The hope of an eternity with my Love, my Lord.

And so God wounded to heal. He brought me low to show me just how much I truly needed him... And then brought beautiful, glorious, painful Healing.

"Come, let us return to the Lord;
For he has torn us, that he may heal us;
He has struck us down, and he will bind us up." (Hosea 6:1)

"For he wounds, but he binds up; 
He shatters, but his hands heal." (Job 5:18)

So that was my year! Oh, and on top of that my only sister got married...

Needless to say, 2012 was the biggest year of my life. Also the most painful, and somehow still the most wonderful. I grew up. The Lord changed me greatly. Now I greet 2013, a woman: weaker in myself, yet ultimately stronger; more vulnerable, more mature, and a little wiser, thanks to His grace. (And much more emotional!)

Hello, new year. Ariel is ready for you. She has a King on her side who can handle anything you throw at her. So bring it on!