hello 2012. so excited to see you.

A new year. I sat writing on my bed last night at midnight and found a huge significance in writing 2012 instead of 2011. The culmination of the past year washed over me in the last few seconds of 2011 and I found myself clinging to the fragments of the last three hundred and sixty five days. Thousands of memories from the past year cluttered my mind, and like the proverbial housewoman who sweeps out the old year, I felt like my thoughts were swept clean as 2012 rolled around soundlessly.

Last year my word was rooted. I clung to that word in times where I felt like sand on the shore, swept up by waves upon wave. I reminded myself of rooted, and what it meant, and the verse I chose with it, and repeated them to myself. Looking back, it was the perfect word for 2011. It helped to keep me grounded.

2011 was a defining year for me. My heart was changed, my purpose and passions made clear, and slowly but surely, I began to discover who I am. My identity in Christ, my loves, my likes, my dreams, hopes, and gifts. In the last few months of 2011, I truly found my voice. I'm rooted deep in Jesus and firm in who I am and who I'm created to be, yet like a tree, my roots go deep but I still have abundant room to grow. To stretch my branches and bud, blossom, and flower, and to reach up to the sky, kissing the blue with my eyes.

I'm so excited for 2012. While 2011 rocked me to the core, 2012 is a year full of promises. Of growing and blooming. 2011 was a year of budding, and 2012 one of blossom. I've been searching and trying to find my word for this year, but have had to surrender. I've got a few ideas, but not the right one yet. My heart is ready and I'm reaching and growing under His rain.

This year, I pray that I'll learn to love like Jesus does; that I'll grow deeper in my walk and more in love with Christ; that my heart would be ready; that I would be diligent, steadfast, and hard-working; and that I would surrender all, trust wholeheartedly, and bloom and flourish where I'm planted, continually fixing my eyes on Jesus, running the only race that matters.

2012? Bring it on. Grateful, blessed, and so ready.