I can hardly believe 2017 is over! Where did the time go?

Honestly, though, it’s almost unfathomable how fast this year flew by and how much happened in only twelve months.

2017 began with me still shaking from the end of 2016. I lost a friend. And that hurt. Deeply. I feel rather embarrassed talking about how broken up I was about it now. But that doesn’t diminish the ache that sat in my chest for months afterward.

God didn’t let me sit there, slowly He helped me look to Him more and more and more.

He brought me my best friend in March, which I’ll never ever forget. She’s stuck with me through thick and thin all year long and put up with my silly problems and all my quirks.  Thank you, Dobbs, I couldn’t have made it without you.

God has given me the stamina to almost finish writing my book. Yes, my book! I’ve never been able to finish anything I write in my life, but I have 280 pages of a nearly finished manuscript. Not only is He giving me the perseverance to finish it, but He provided someone to help me in the process. I’m so grateful. This book is my baby.

Not only did I write my book though, I started this blog! Yay! I’ve learned so much about writing and people and life in the six months I’ve been blogging. God’s really been showing me how to use my talents to glorify Him in blogging and book writing.

Over the summer, my best friend and I became best friends with another best friend duo. (Wow, there was a lot of best friending in that sentence.) That’s been so fun and encouraging. The four of us a kinda a unique bunch, but I couldn’t ask for anyone else to be my friends. I love those girls to pieces.

And then in September, I had an amazing birthday complete with a wonderful party, amazing friends and family, and a trip to a museum with my dad.

I grew as a person this year. I discovered myself and who God made me to be in so many ways.

In short, God has been amazingly faithful. Not because of all the good that He brought from the bad, but because He was with me in it all.

“She didn’t understand that His faithfulness was not dependent on hers. While she searched long and hard for guarantees, even fashioning some of her own, God was upholding the ultimate and only true guarantee. He was always and actively keeping His covenant of love to His children – to her.” ~She Reads Truth (Review soon to come for this amazing book!)

He was with me that night I sobbed in my closet, He was with me when I promised to love Him more but miserably failed, He was with me when I held my stomach that ached from laughing too hard, He was with me when I locked myself in my bedroom for the day in a writing frenzy, and He’s with me now.

I want 2018 to be like 2017 in that regard. I want to focus on the faithfulness of God this year. I want to sit and abide in His love.

Just as I repeated these verses to myself all those time I mentioned above, I hope they’ll be my anthem this year as well.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:1-5, emphasis mine)

That’s it my friends. Abide in Him.