Wow, what a year. During Christmas this year, I realized how grateful I am for this year. I know that might sound pretty crazy to some people. This year has been full of challenges, but it has also been full of a lot of good things as well. This time last year, I was in pain all the time because of a pinched nerve in my shoulder. 2019 had been a rough year physically.
2020 started off filled with people and a lot of fun, even if I was in pain. You can look back on my post HERE.
My word for the year was hope. I wrote about this at the beginning of the year HERE. This has been my focus throughout the year. It became more important through some of the things that came my way.
The biggest thing I faced at the beginning of 2020 was the debilitating pain in my right arm. One of the hardest things was deciding what I should do. I prayed and was blessed by advice a friend who's a physical therapist and my parents. Eventually, I found an amazing PT who helped me find the problem, and over the course of eight visits was able to train me to deal with the issue myself. I'm pain-free! You can read some about this HERE and HERE.
Oh yes, and then the pandemic came. The lockdown came and it was hard, yet there were all sorts of wonderful things that happened too. You can read about some of them HERE. One of the biggest blessings for our family? Puppies! One of the hardest things...
I tore my calf muscle. It was the weirdest sensation. I was putting something up in my closet and it felt like someone had thrown a heavy object at my leg. I lost my balance and quickly pulled myself over to a chair. And then the pain came. For a few weeks, I was on crutches and couldn't put weight on the leg. You can read my post HERE. My healing has taken a long time. I still haven't been able to return to my morning runs.
Since I was turning 30 on the 30th of June, I decided to do something for each day of the month. It was a lot of fun. It really helped to, because it was hard to face turning 30 without being married. I'm not where I thought I would be but God has really blessed me. You can read what I did in my posts about my birthday HERE, HERE, and HERE.
I haven't posted a lot this year. I really struggled to have inspiration for any kind of writing, which was sad because I hadn't been able to write for so long I wanted to write and write.
Perhaps one of the most valuable things that came out of this year was the affirmation that I truly believe what I say I believe about God, His goodness, and His power.
- Covid has made life hard and I don't always like the restrictions, but I believe that no person is in power and no event happens apart from the will of God. I rested in that fact.
- I'm not where I wanted to be in life. I even cried some tears and asked God why I was still single. But at the end of the day, I know in my heart of hearts that everything that God has given me, and everything He hasn't is for my good.
- With every challenge, while I haven't been perfect, I have remained faithful in the knowledge that God has a plan and purpose in everything. Nothing is a mistake.
With so much upheaval and so many Christians that were confused and struggling, I took great comfort in the solid foundation of my faith.
Now, shall we look at how I did on my resolutions?
I wanted to work on these because I already knew that I was allowing things to rob me of joy and that was affecting my speech. As the year progressed, it became even more important than the joy of the LORD was cultivated in my heart. One of the biggest ways I worked on this was to curb my grumbling habit. The Grumble-Free Year by Tracia Goyer went a long way in giving me some strategies. Another thing that helped me is to spend time focusing my thoughts on Jesus. There is nothing like focusing on how great our God is to put our problems into perspective.
Both of these goals were achieved! It was fun to get so many books read this year, mostly from my to-read list on Goodreads. You can see my year in books on Goodreads HERE. It was very nice to have a bit goal to work toward when things were tough.
