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the past year and a half has changed me in ways i still don't understand.

i didn't believe people when they told me that i would make it through 2013, i thought somehow or someway i wouldn't make it. 

the funny thing is, you are probably expecting me to say some really bad things happened or i was sick or there was some sort of life or death situation. thats not true at all. 

if anything, the past year was overflowing with good things. but i didn't see it like that.

i was a child, like a little Israelite girl wondering in the desert after being released from slavery. 

there was a promise ahead, and God was walking so near to me. 

but all i could think, was I'm not going to make it. I'm going to die out hear and its all your fault God because you did this to me. you gave me too many good things.

how embarrassing is that.....

in the fall of 2012 i was at wheaton college and had been accepted on the 2013 summer wheaton in the holy lands trip.

the minute i walked onto wheatons campus thats all i ever wanted to do. i wanted to travel and study abroad and see the world, i didn't care how much it cost.

but prior to applying for that trip God had changed my heart and inevitably changed my plans. 

i never wanted to get married or fall in love because i had seen nothing but failure after failure and i didn't want that. i was fine with being alone, i thought. 

but God gave me Derek, and in the summer of 2012 he proposed.

i was so scared, i didn't think i could handle planning a wedding, i never actually wanted a wedding. the date was set for 8.10.13

but God in his goodness revealed to me what marriage truly meant and changed my heart forever. 

so now i was planning a wedding, in my final year of college and now planning to study abroad for 7 weeks a month before the wedding. 

i couldn't handle it. 

i went to my dear friend, crying in fear of failure. she prayed over me and spoke truth into my life and i will never forget that blessing. 

2013 came and i started writing letters to people, asking them to support my trip.

i felt so weird about asking people for money, but i knew i couldn't go otherwise. 

through that God taught me what it means to be the church and what it looked like to support one another.

by the grace of God i raised 10,000$ to study abroad, which testifies to Gods sovereign hand.

in may i began my trip. we went to Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Israel/Palestine. i missed home at times, but more than anything i wished Derek could experience was i was doing. it was truly the most remarkable thing i have ever done.

God changed me so much across the world. i saw so many types of people in so many different cultures. i was humbled and ashamed of my arrogance. i had always been ethnocentric, and God tore my heart apart for the nations. 

i learned so much about myself and what it meant to be a minority. 

i will never read the bible the same, now seeing where jesus and paul and the disciples walked. 

that trip changed me.

so i retuned home feeling like a foreigner still. 7 weeks is just long enough to start feeling at home. but here i was back in the midwest town of 40,000 about to get married in a month and i don't feel like I'm home. 

i was so confused and i just wanted everyone around me to understand and experience what i had. God changed my heart for the nations. 

right when i get home, literally as i am driving home from the airport i find out that my stepdad left me mom while i was gone. 

i couldn't believe it.. my heart sunk and i felt so much despair. 

why was i even getting married? i mean isn't it a joke these days, that people actually get married. 

satan used my moms divorce a month before my wedding to lead me to believe lies about love, marriage, and commitment. 

the flood of lies would come and go throughout the next weeks, but i never truly killed them with the word of God. 

a week before our wedding i was crying everyday. i wasn't crying because i was growing up and beucase my life was changing and i was leaving my parents.

i was crying out of fear. here i was again... crying out of fear.

thats all i had ever done, when things get hard and scary i freeze and cry.

i figured i would probably leave derek or he would leave me, so whats the point anyways. i was so scared of marriage. 

8.10.13 came, and the power of the Spirit covered that day in His grace and mercy.

it was one of the best days of my life. i had so much joy and i was refreshed and encouraged by the gospel of Jesus Christ that day. 

so here i am, its 2014 and i made it. 

all these events of the past year are just details, but they were real to me. 

they may seem silly or insignificant but it was real to me. 

i doubted Gods goodness, faithfulness, and love for me.

but he brought me through. he took me one step at a time and showed me just enough in front of me. 

i knew it was going to be a year that would change my life forever, and it was. 

i was so afraid of taking a step because i was so afraid of failing. 

1 john 4:18....there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. for fear has to do with punishment...

i understand Gods love in 2014 in a way i never could have if i wouldn't have experienced 2013. 

punishment comes from failure, and there is no failure with God.

if God is who he says he is and he is in control, as long as we are walking in step with the Spirit, dwelling in Jesus Christ, we cannot fail. 

2014 will not be without fear or hardship, but it will be covered in grace. 

lets truly believe this is year brothers and sisters, 

"there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus." romans 8:1....