Looking Behind and Forwards

This is not my first, second, or even third post to attempt to write about the past year.  Knowing it would take me a loonnnnggg time to express myself I started weeks ago and didn't like where the post was going so*click*--that post deleted.  The process reoccurred multiple times until I nearly gave up the idea of trying to figure out what I've learned in the past year.  Sometimes I overcomplicate things so much that I exit out of my blog screen with a swirling brain and frustration at the hindrance I feel to understand myself and write so that others understand me.  After all, it's nearly impossible to explain something I myself don't grasp.  Yet when I stop and look at the big picture, this isn't about me, and that breaks down the barriers which make something as simple as reflecting on God's goodness such a big deal.

All I really want to do as I look back on the past year is praise God.  I write that with tears welling up in my eyes because there have been so many moments in the past year that I've been disappointed in God and other times that I've wanted so bad to praise Him but it just didn't come naturally.  Tonight I don't praise Him because life is problem free and all my challenges over the past year are resolved because that's not the case.  I praise Him because He has proven to me that He is trustworthy and that I can run to Him and find rest, comfort, security, and peace.  I praise Him that He is bigger than me though I've put Him in a box.  I praise Him for drawing me close to Him through challenging situations because I love the feel of His embrace and I know myself too well to pretend that I'd constantly turn to Him if life was perfect.

I don't know where you're at in your journey, if it's the bottom of the valley, the top of the mountain, or the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other ascent up the hill.  But I do know that it does not matter where we are.  We can praise God anywhere because despite how much things in this life change He is the same.  And the great part about that is He is everything good.  Oh, how I've forgotten that far too often in this past year!  He's had every reason to slap me into good behavior or just give up on me yet those times when I took my eyes off Him and wondered why life had to be as it was He has gently shaken me by the shoulders and reminded me, "What else do you expect from a broken world?  Come to Me!"  What a release we can find in Him!  It's my prayer that all you who are aching will feel the comfort of our good Father and that you who are rejoicing will give Him the praise!

Praising God for His faithfulness in 2014 and looking forward to His goodness in 2015!