Closing a Chapter

I feel a bit like I'm in the midst of the pupal stage, soon to break on to the scene as a different creature.  I feel as though there is little to show externally for all that has been happening.  The people we work with love to be discipled in their homes, but after about 2 months of services, only one couple has attended services.  Very little has occured to reflect the growth that has taken place internally for me.  I cut my bangs again, but that reflects little more than my desire to see.  It has been difficult living in a pair - working together, eating together, sharing a room, etc.  Two people with difficult backgrounds, different cultures, different first languages - this has been a formative year and a half.  The blessed curse that I have in my life is that if I want to complete the task at hand and be faithful to God - there is no escape and there are very few distractions.  It's not all bad, don't get me wrong, but it has been difficult.  Ask my partner, well if you speak Spanish or have a translator, and you will find that she agrees whole-heartedly.  I have met my true self more profoundly in this time and so has she.  I'm thankful for the struggle that was part of 2011.  Something that has truly made me a better person.  Besides the church plants and new disciples that we will leave behind, I feel as though I will return home a transformed person.

This year, through the power of prayer, I've seen family members begin to want more of God and start counseling to seek emotional health and with friends I've witnessed a separation intending to end in divorce be a marriage restored.  God provided for my college debts so that I could continue to work here in Arequipa and often spoke to me through His word and others to set me on a right path when I had doubts or questions.  My relationship with God has become much more real, not because I am special or different or more holy, but because I made myself available to God and chose to trust more.  I'm still not a rolemodel for spiritual discipline, but in being intentional to make time for Him I have seen greater fruit in my life and through my prayers.  He has blessed me with His presence and counsel.  He became known to me this year as Healer and Provider in a very personal way and through watching others' lives and participating in their stories.

I just wanted to take a moment to reflect and share on this past year before climbing a 19,000+ ft. volcano to cap off 2011.  I'm going to reflect a little more before starting to think about what I hope to see out of 2012 and how I can be more in tune with what God wants for me, my surroundings, and the world at large in this next year.  What are the lessons that you learned this past year?  How did you see His restoration at work in the world and in your life?  What are your New Year's resolutions or aspirations for the upcoming year?  Whatever your response is, I pray that you sense that God is at the center of it all or that you allow Him to be.  I pray that both you and I begin to understand the profundity of His love as for us as mentioned in Ephesians 3:14-19.