In the year of our Lord...

I am late on this, but oh well...

2011 was a weird year.

There is no way that I could have predicted all the events 2011 brought. Primarily because I tried, and none of those things happened. A lot of life altering events happened to me and people close to me. Some great things took place. I graduated from college, got a job, and moved into a new city completely on my own. I finally crossed into the threshold of "adulthood," or my own definition of it anyway.  I ran a 5K for the first time in my life, actually 2 in the same month. I took road trips with friends. Got the chance to work with one of my role models over the summer. I met new people and started new relationships that impacted my life in big ways.

The year was also marked with darker times. Watched people struggle with unemployment. Saw pain, confusion, hard abrupt changes, and loneliness. Saw relationships end as people drifted apart. Had both of my grandmothers pass away. In the end it almost seemed like the year was more pain than good, more disappointment than joy. Gloom,  brokenness, and hurt were prominent threads.

Its was a year of experiences. It was a year full of questions. It was a weird year.

I feel that I should add a disclaimer here: My life is not horrible, and I am not depressed. There were several really good things and positive highlights in 2011. But I did notice a common theme to the events of my life and the lives of those close to me. There were more valleys than mountain peaks, hill tops, or even plateaus.

It was weird year because gloom, brokenness, and hurt are not the threads one would pick first if they were writing the story of their life.

It seems to me that as we go through life we get this idea in our heads of how things "should" play out. We have a picture in our minds of how we want the story to end. But most of the time, the story takes a vicious turn, one far away from the ideal we so desperately wanted or expected. It seems like the story just ends rather abruptly without wrapping up loose ends or bringing closure. And without warning the next story starts and we are caught in the middle of a new story before we were ready to leave the first one.

I think we are under the illusion that we are responsible for writing the end of the story. This is untrue. The truth is: the beginning and the end have already been written. God made all things in the beginning, and in the end will restore all things back to himself.  But we find ourselves in the middle, and sometimes the middle just isn't that great, but it does make all the difference. Because just like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, or the stuff Donald Miller writes, its the hard times that make the story worth telling.

I learned a lot this past year. I learned about who I am, about who my friends and family are, and about who God is. I think my most valuable lesson I learned is this: The pressure to make everything turn out all right, to make sure the ending is "happily ever after" is completely off our shoulders. Even though it doesn't seem like it amid all the pain, failure, and heartache, we have already been made right. All we have to do is trust that God is already helping us live into the ending of the story. That is the good news.