Hail the New, Ye Lads and Lasses!

So we're saying goodbye to 2013, aren't we? Goodbye to a year full of firsts and lasts and possibly more heart-ache and heart-balm and heart-lessons than any year I have yet lived. I don't think I wrote quite as much this year as last or even the year before, but I sure as heck lived and living is always the better half of writing. In numbers, I:

Read 44 books
Rode 10 planes
Touched down in 3 foreign countries (France, Hungary, Romania)
Counseled at 2 camps
Led 2 Student Action Teams
Wrote 90 posts here (this makes 90! I love even numbers)
Baked 1 cheesecake 
Listened to 4 seasons of Cabin Pressure
Watched 3 seasons of Downton Abbey
Read 6 Penelope Wilcock books
Went to 1 wedding
Went to 1 funeral

So much life was jammed into this last twelve-month. So many good things among the tough that I can't help but thank God for it and ask for another year of such productive, adventurous, tumultuous soul-growth. Yes, bits were hard but bits were beautiful too and I'm not sure but the beautiful bits far outweighed the rough. There is so much to look forward to in 2014! For one thing, the publication of Fly Away Home! In six weeks (please God) you'll be able to buy a copy of this book...so many of you have been around since I first started writing it; I consider you its dear aunts and uncles and it's been a treasure to have your support.

"Adventura". That was the word for 2013, though I didn't set out to choose a word. I love it when people choose a theme for their year, but I am a sensible soul, all things considered, and I prefer seeing what the year handed me at the end. Adventura = adventure with a lot of soul things attached to it. That's not the literal translation but that's what it means to me and my friends and family. I am excited to live 2014 and see what I'll be telling you a year hence. What things will have changed? What things will be the same? I don't know. But what I do know is that it is a year planned in the Book of History. A year that has been in God's view since time before time...and I cannot wait to take part in it. :)

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord God has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to prisoners; to proclaim the favorable year of our Lord and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all those who mourn, to grant to those in Zion, giving them a garland instead of ashes." -Isaiah 61:1-3

Have a lovely New Year, darlings.