30 Days of You and Me: Day Thirty

And with the end of the year...I conclude this long-drawn out little project I did...30 Days of You and Me. It's a perfect end-of-year post, actually.

The actual question is What have I learned about myself in the past 30 days? I'll modify that since I dragged this thing out for something like a year and a half.

I've been reflecting on this past crazy-busy, full-of-change year, and here are some of the epiphanies I've had.

* Way before the desert ever started, my sister wrote me a letter, and in it, she said I'm stronger than I know. I didn't believe her. Now I do.

* Most things aren't worth getting upset about. A grammatically poor sentence, but true, nonetheless. I have always been (rightfully) accused of being high-strung, and just about anything stressed me out. I've mellowed. And I love it when I see mellowing in action - like this past week when I lost about an hour-and-a-half's worth of work at my job and rather than getting mad and crying, as Bekah of yore would have done, I rolled my eyes and cracked down to redo it.

* God is at work in me when I can't see it. When I look at the things my job requires of me (being an extrovert, driving in cities, daily commutes, public vulnerability, etc) i know I couldn't have done those things even a year ago. I was much too caught up in fear. But each circumstance I went through made me able to do what I do now.

* I have worth and it's finally coming from the right source. I told Ronda a few days ago that when I dated Isaac, I believed for the first time that I was worth loving. Somehow he made me believe that. And I figured when he left, that worth would disappear right along with him. But it didn't. Though I was broken that he didn't choose to love me, I still believe I'm worth loving. That's new!

* God's timing is mysterious, yet perfect. It baffles me that the lack of house sale hasn't unglued me. But as I recently told Lynne, I don't doubt for one second that the job was of God. Therefore the fact that He has NOT sold my house tells me it's a calculated situation and He's using it in some way for something. Does it annoy me? Yes. Do I wish it were going differently right now? Yes. But I still trust that He knows what He's doing!

* And finally - the biggest truth I've learned in this past year is this: I survived the desert. I can survive anything. Some of you might read this next part and say "Oh that is not true." But for me, I believe it is. I can think of very few things that could be worse than what I went through last year. (For me, I mean.) Being loved to the point of marriage talk and then rejected was pretty much my worst fear. I've lived through hard stuff, but for my personality, that was the worst thing. I thought it would kill me and it didn't. So if I could live through that, then I can live through whatever. And I tell myself that when something hard surfaces. I pep talk myself with "Bekah, you lived your worst fear. You were chosen and left. And you survived it. If you did THAT, you can do THIS. Get out there and do this."

So that's what I've learned. It's a great end-of-year question, though. What about you? What have you learned about yourself...life...God?