Dear 2011,
What can I say? You have truly been a memorable year. We started very rocky. You brought a great deal of sadness and despair at the onset, but you ended with healing and patching of old wounds. Oh year, you brought a master’s degree, a new job, new friends, a new city, a new apartment, and a new community of coworkers, family, friends, and church members. You taught me the meaning of team and family, and you forced me to face some difficult things and move past them. 2011, I am so grateful for you. Although you started with tens of job rejections, you always knew which job was really meant for me. Although you separated me from certain people, you always knew who my real friends should be. Although you made one living situation not work out, you knew where I should really be living.
I doubted your potential 2011. I feared your days and months. I tried to escape from the passing of your calendar. But day after day passed and you persisted. Your winter brought bitter disappointment, your spring utter despair, but by summer, you brought hope, and in autumn you gave me a new life. You have been a year to remember that’s for sure. At some points, I didn’t know if I’d see you end. But I have, I’m here at your end. Wow! What a journey we have endured together. I am so grateful for you 2011. The newness that you have brought, but also the ending of old habits and sins that you have stopped. For all the doors that you have opened this year, thank you. For all the joys that I have experienced, thank you. For all of the people who you’ve brought into my life, thank you. For revealing God to me, thank you. For helping me to seek God, thank you. For completely giving my life over to Christ, thank you.
2011, thank you. For the bad days, for the tears, for the trials, for the loneliness, for the rejection, for the suffering, thank you. Without those experiences, I would never know how great life can really be.
As your time is quickly coming to an end, I look with eager anticipation at what your successor 2012 will bring. As with any year, I also know there will be bad days too. But 2011, you taught me that bad days are not Godless days. For that lesson alone, I appreciate you 2011.
Farewell and thank you; you have been a metamorphic year,
Kristen
10,000 Miles to Love 