2013: Year in Review

I'm not really sure what it is about the end of the year that makes me all kinds of reflective, but I've always been this way.  With one year coming to an end and a new year beginning, I always feel the need to reflect on the year past and plan for the year ahead.

2013 has been quite the year in so many ways. So much change, excitement, fun, heartache, loss, grief, and growth.  The beginning of the year saw us finalizing the blueprints for our Grandview house, while beginning the packing process of our first home in Forest Grove.  Spring was hectic as I was run ragged at work and Cole studied for Part 1 of his Boards exam.

We bid a tearful goodbye to our first home together in May - as we set out on our grand year-long adventure, with our first stop: Honolulu.  Our time in Hawai'i was very fun, but also quite lonely and a challenging season for me as I wrestled with more downtime than I'd ever known before - wrestling with my identity, my value, and my walk with God.  In retrospect, it is very clear that God used this season to grab ahold of my attention in a way that I had made nearly impossible by the tenor of my harried schedule for the previous, oh, TEN-ish years.  The Lord used books and time in His Word to slowly peel back - one finger at a time - my death-grip of feigned control on my life.

To this day, I am still only beginning to mine the depths and implications of that time in my life.  To be sure, it was simply a starting point in a much greater, much larger, and much more life-long process of growth.

While we were in Hawai'i, we received a lot of important phone calls.  We got a call that we would be an aunt and uncle again.  We got a call that Grandma Kate had been diagnosed with colon cancer.  We got a call that Grandma Kate had slipped into a coma following her surgery.  And we got a call that Grandma Kate had been promoted to Glory on August 2, 2013.  Just a few life-changing phone calls, I suppose.

The depth and breadth of my grief took me by complete surprise.  I had known that I loved her deeply and I had known that she had a profound impact on my life.  What I did not anticipate was the incredibly profound impact she would have on my life in her death.  Grappling with the idea of death, losing someone I love, and the fact that - unless Jesus comes back soon - I will have to continue to say goodbye to those that I love. This grappling rocked me to my very core.

On August 9, I cried as my grandfather, a tall, big, impressive retired Airforce Colonel bid his last farewell to his life's longest love as she was lowered into the ground. This big, strong man never looked so small as he knelt beside her casket, laid a rose atop the polished, pale blue wood, and choked through his tears, 

"Goodbye, my love. Thank you for loving me."

The time that followed, those three months living in Spokane, was good; hard, but good.  I struggled with adjusting to living with my parents and wrestling - once again - with my identity, where my value lies, and the fear of man, namely my parents.  Cole and I wrestled with maintaining our oneness while sharing space with other people.  Work for both of us left us pretty tired by the end of the day - though, with three-day weekends, we drove to Sunnyside any chance we could get.

In November, we headed to Colorado.  This has easily been the most refreshing time yet.  Surrounded by people who love us - yet without the harried schedule of working (for me, at least), I have been able to spend extended time in the Word in the mornings and enjoy the fellowship of family to boot.  As in Spokane, it is still a challenge to get "us time" in a house full of people, but we are getting along just fine.  The holidays were incredibly difficult to be away from home - especially since these are the first holidays without Grandma Kate.  I know this is just the beginning of the firsts, and I dread each one.

Today, December 30, Grandma Kate would have been 81.  As we enter 2014, the first year without her, I pray that our grief would grow to joy, knowing - with as much assurance as we can have here on this earth - that she is ringing in the New Year with greater joy than she has ever known.