Tonight I'm leaving the US for London and Paris and I won't be back until we've entered a new year. So during my FIVE hour layover at the airport today, I did some reflecting on these last 365 days.
Looking back at myself exactly a year ago and all the things I thought would happen in 2015, I can’t help but laugh. Because I couldn’t have been more wrong. But I won’t bore you with a soliloquy of details about how my life turned out so differently than I ever expect it to, because I suspect you already know that’s always the case with life. Not to mention, I’ve already dished a lot about what I learned from those failed plans on here this year.
I learned about brokenness. I learned to dream big. I learned that sometimes painful things like heartbreak can take you on great adventures.
So sitting where I am now, I know better than to predict what life will look like in another 365 days.
It’s a funny thing though- what we think about our predictions or plans. Because back in January when mine fell apart, I thought this would probably be the worst year of my life so far. But in hindsight, I can genuinely say that it was actually one of my very best ever. Far from perfect, yes. But I am where I am today- sitting in the United Club at Newark Airport, waiting to fly to Europe for my third time this year, on the adventure of a lifetime in so many different ways, because life didn’t turn out the way I planned.
Your life may not look like you hoped it would right now. Maybe 2015 was a total wash in your mind. And I hate to burst your bubble, but your calculated plans for 2016? A lot of those probably won’t happen either. But what a relief it is to know that life with God means one that's full of beautiful surprises. And from all I've learned this year, I now believe that in the end, they usually end up being better than what we would have ever chosen for ourselves otherwise. As Shauna Niequist says:
Everything is interim. Everything is a path or a preparation for the next thing, and we never know what that next thing is. Life is like that, of course, twisty and surprising. But life with God is like that exponentially. We can dig in, make plans, write in stone, pretend we’re not listening, but the voice of God has a way of being heard. It seeps in like smoke or vapor even when we’ve barred the door against any last-minute changes, and it moves us to different countries and different emotional territories and different ways of living. It keeps us moving and dancing and watching, and never lets us drop down into a life set on cruise control or a life ruled by remote control. Life with God is a dancing dream, full of flashes and last-minute exits and generally, all the things we’ve said we’ll never do. And with the surprises comes great hope.
I have so much that I’m excited to share with you guys here on the blog when I’m back in the New Year. We’re going to dig into what it means to dream big while allowing room for plans to change. We’ll be doing more traveling. And we'll probably do lots of other stuff that God has up his sleeve that I don’t even know about yet. But in the meantime, I’m hopping off for a bit and heading to London now so I can celebrate all these plot twists God gave me this last year that lead me exactly here. I'd love for you to follow along on my adventure via Instagram (@blonde_atlas) or Snapchat (blonde_atlas).
Cheers to all that God has in store for us in 2016. The best is yet to come.
"What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived. That's the things that God has prepared for those who love him." -1 Corinthians 2:9
"He is able to do IMMEASURABLY more than all we could ever ask or imagine." -Ephesians 3:20
