A Reflection on 2012

I think a lot of people are with me when I say that 2012 just wasn't my year. I don't want to appear ungrateful for the blessing of another year of life and truly, I'm not ungrateful. It's just that, it wasn't my year.

As we passed into 2013, a little less than a week ago, I honestly felt relieved to finally wash my hands of 2012. And of course, here I am, ironically rehashing my 2012 for all to read. I suppose I just can't deny that all of last year is going to dramatically affect this year. Therefore, I'm brought to reflection, so I go into 2013 equipped with the lessons of the past (more on that tomorrow).

I'm only 24 years old, so I know I'm being dramatic, but last year may have been the worst year of my life to date. As the year went on, it seriously just kept getting worse. By that I mean, the external pieces of my life continued to crumble one by one. I hated it. I could spend many sentences inducing your pity by over-sharing about all of the "bad things" that I encountered. But as I consider it more, I believe the internal struggles in my life to be the true disappointments. These are things that beat me down over and over again this year.

Unhappy, Discontent, Restless, Depressed, whatever you want to call it. 
My general mood in 2012 was...something...this year. I apologize to all of my friends who had to put up with me. At one point I might have said that "I wasn't myself", but the horrifying thing is that I started to believe that this was who I truly was. A depressed, unhappy person who just wasn't content with her life.
I kept hoping for some big change to sweep my off my feet. Something to excite me again, to stir my heart toward all of things I was made to do. And when things didn't change, I spiraled further down into my unhappiness. I've never been more guarded, stoic, and grumpy then I was last year. Again, my apologies to those who are my friends.

Seeking distraction
In the open and vulnerable moments of the year, I was a mess. Tears filled my eyes at the drop of a pin, and I emoted over every one and everything. (Should I throw in another apology here?) But most of the time, I sought distraction. I attempted (and often succeeded) to bury my fears, my sadness, and my discontentment. I watched a lot of tv.
Slowly but surely, laziness crept into my life. I wasn't dealing with my own sadness and that turned into not dealing with a lot of things. Things like cooking and cleaning. I avoided these simple chores at all cost, only acting when absolutely necessary. My poor husband, we actually started to get sick of eating out because because we relied on it so often. And then, of course, this led to the guilt of shirking my responsibilities as a wife and homemaker.


So I had this cloud over me for most of the year. One of sadness, guilt, laziness. One of waiting for something. I don't know what it was, or what it is, but it was keeping me from living my life as I was created to.

To sum it up, I suppose 2012 was one of those years of my life that I just barely skated through. I managed to keep up with everything just enough. I managed to keep my head above water-sort of. I managed to survive. Sorry, I must repeat myself, I managed to survive. I guess I'm a little amazed that I made it to this fresh start of a new year.

I'm washing my hands of 2012. I'm giving it to the Lord, asking Him to take it and make something beautiful of it in this new year. Because I couldn't do anything beautiful with 2012. 2012 was a dark cloud in my life, but God doesn't see the dark clouds. He sees all of eternity. In His sovereignty and His greatness, He sees not only my whole life, past, present and future, but also all of eternity in one glance. He sees His glory over it all. And eventually, I pray, He will give me the eyes to see not a dark cloud of a past year but His glory.