• My furlough. It was so good to be home for a few months, to rebuild relationships and form new ones. To get to visit my three best friends and reconnect with others. To get Godly council from a variety of people. I have many precious memories from those 5 months, and have been greatly blessed by them.
• I took my first solo road trip, and got to visit many places like Bath, Philadelphia, Colorado, and Northern Indiana for the first time. I love to travel, and this was certainly a good year for traveling!
• The same can be said for pretty much the last 15 years of my life, but I knit a lot of fun projects, read a lot of good books (Blackout, All Clear, Questioning Evangalism, 100 Cupboards, Six of Crows), saw some great movies (Hidden Figures, Rogue One, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), and heard a lot of good music (Hamilton, Audrey Assad) for the first time last year. Oh--and I bought a spinning wheel!
• I walked (with a pinch of jogging) To Write Love on Her Arm’s 5k in April. Through various circumstances I have become very aware of how many hurting people are out there who are unlikely to ever get help for various reasons; I want to be a voice of hope to those who are in a dark place, and to do what I can use my own hardships to make me more sensitive to others.
• While I was home, one of the things I did was to substitute teach at a Classical Christian School in my hometown. I so enjoyed seeing how another school runs, reconnecting with people I know, and to get to know some of the kids a little. The 8th graders were my favorites!
• Another of the best things about being home was the many, many churches I got to visit with my different friends and family members. It was refreshing to be in English services, and exciting to see living, growing bodies of Christ in many different flavors. I am so thankful for all those worship services and sermons.
Some of the hard things about being 30:
• This was my hardest birthday to face, and it was particularly difficult because I was still grieving a loss. Because of the circumstances of my life at present, I often feel downright old, and turning 30 felt a little bit like a death knell. I had always hoped that my life would look rather different by this point, and in some ways it felt like I had not achieved as much as I could have/aught to have.
• In all honesty, coming back to the school was pretty much the hardest thing I have ever done. There are a lot of factors in this situation, and I am so thankful that the Lord confirmed that it was His will for me to come back before I got on the plane, and He has shown me some other reasons why I needed to come back. So, while it was hard, God is faithful.
• Being away from my family is a constant ache, and last year was no exception. My family is not perfect (after all, I’m in it), but I wouldn’t trade them for the world.
To finish off, here are a few of my favorite pictures from the year of 30:
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