It's just been a bunch of stupid seasons

Let's just be honest: I've been waiting for the new year since August. I'm not one bit sad to bid farewell to 2013. This year has been the most challenging, difficult year of my (admittedly, fairly short) life. Although I will wake up, God willing, on January 1, 2014 in the exact same place in life as I was on December 31, 2013, there is just something significant about the New Year. I can't describe why, apart from the feeling that it is just a symbolic turning of the page.

Now, it's been quite a while since I last wrote on here. And that post was all about change and transition, and wondering where I will go and how I will serve God. I was hoping that by now I would have a better idea of where I would go.

NOPE.

I guess I have narrowed it down to a handful of cities, but I thought that I would have a more definite idea of where I would head off to by now. I'm definitely keeping Tuscaloosa and Birmingham in the mix, and I've added in Nashville, Atlanta, and somewhere along the gulf coast. Oh, and I have to find a job in one of these places. Because, ya know, life. And because it's, ya know, life, I might not end up in any of those places at all.

However muddled and indecisive I am about where to go (or not go, if I stick around Tuscaloosa), I am very excited to say I have gained clarity on how to better serve God. Truly, I can't even describe the feeling of God's infinite love, mercy, grace, and compassion. The Bible does a better job than I could. Maybe you should be reading it instead of this, ya bunch of heathens. (Just try to read that as a joke. I don't know if you're actually a heathen or not, and I would really rather believe you are not one.)

I teetered on a brink before, wondering how to give Him more of me without really wanting to go through with giving Him more. Then, when I was made to step off the edge, I saw that there was really not a cliff there at all. The circumstances that made me step off the precipice (I'm really just seeing how many different words I can use to say the same thing in this paragraph) were not fun at all. But by stepping off that point, I was forced to obey God or ignore God. And when I obeyed Him, He not only affirmed me, He ended up starting an entirely new season in my life.

Ya know, I will say it has always annoyed me when people talk about seasons of life. I don't have a good reason for why it has annoyed me. But it just has. "You're just going through a season." "It's just a season of change." "This season will end and a new season will begin."

There are only 4 seasons: winter, spring, summer, autumn, okay??



But there's truth in that. By the standard of that kind of season, I would split 2013 into two seasons. And when the second season began, I met new people. I read new things. I picked up a sport (okay, so I play tennis by my own rules, and very poorly, but it counts). I prayed. I decided to learn from the change rather than just wait out the change. A lot of this is just vague blabbering, I know.

Maybe picking up this blog again will be my resolution for the new year. Or maybe not. Hope y'all have a fabulous 2014!