Reflections on 2013

As this year draws to an end, like so many others around the world, I feel the need to reflect over the previous 12 months in my life. 2013 was a year of accomplishment and extreme growth for me. From expanding business relationships to my personal relationships, I have changed in virtually every area. A close friend once told me that the person I was at 18 would be nothing like the person I was at 21 and that this process would continue all of my life. I didn’t believe her at the time, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve learned that each year her words become truer and truer. My current 23 year old self seems so distant and profoundly different than who I was five years ago. And five years from now, I’ll look back on these words and revel at how incredibly young-minded and naïve I am today. It’s a humbling and inspiring experience to know that I will (hopefully) continually change and mature until the day I leave this planet.

I realize that it’s pretty clichéd to write a post about reflecting on the previous year while simultaneously calling my former self a stranger, but that’s really the only accurate description I can give. Clichés may be overdone, but sometimes they are all that fit. 2013 has not been such an awesome year because of me, though; it has been 100% because of God. This year has been full of uncertainty, and it forced me to throw myself head first into my relationship with the Father. And though it’s a decision I must constantly renew, I have never once regretted or questioned putting my faith entirely in God.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have been given a passion for seeing an end to modern day slavery within my lifetime, and this passion has driven my thoughts and actions for a very long time. In April of this year, I was blessed with the fantastic opportunity of volunteering with a local non-profit organization which directly serves victims and survivors of human trafficking in Virginia. I work with such a dedicated, brilliant, steadfast, and compassionate group of people who are the definition of love personified. Each day I am reminded of how fortunate I am to know and interact with such noteworthy and motivating people.

My boyfriend also became my future husband this year, and we’re both anxiously and enthusiastically awaiting our wedding in mid-August 2014. All my life, my spiritual leaders warned me of the dangers of cohabiting with my significant other prior to marriage, and while I know our living situation isn’t pleasing to God, it has never once separated me from celebrating and loving my Father in Heaven. 2013 has had its ups and downs, but God has seen me through it all and he has remained a constant beacon of hope and strength.

I imagined adulthood would be terrible and awful and unenjoyable; but how incredibly wrong I was. Becoming an adult—while admittedly very terrifying—has been the most rewarding, exciting, and enthralling adventure of my life; and I am stoked to see where God will lead me in 2014 and in the years to come.

“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” – Isaiah 43:18-19