The End

I am almost finished reading the entire Bible. I started in January of 2012 and was hoping but not planning on finishing before 2014.

My church did it as a church body in 2012, but I of course got off track and got behind. So I made a promise to myself when 2013 came around and I was still in the readings from July that I wouldn't drink any alcohol until I finished the Bible. 

So far I have kept that promise. I have had at least 3 dreams in which I drank, some in which I drank fully knowing that I was breaking my promise to myself, some in which I had forgotten and then as I started drinking remembered and stopped. 

But has now been a full year since alcohol has touched me lips. 

I wanted to hurry up and finish reading because I would have very much liked to celebrate New Years with a glass of champagne.

Part of me is expecting something amazing to happen when I finish those final words. As if some great miracle will occur. The heavens will part and God's will in my life will be made clear. 

The realistic part if me says that isn't possible, and is maybe even scared that something won't happen.

That the only event that will occur when I finally read Revelations 22:11 is that my roommates and friends will pop open a bottle of champagne. That there will be no significant life event that will coincide with me finally reading every bit of God's written word. I will have just finished a book. 

And that makes me sad. That keeps me from opening up my Bible right now and pushing through the final 40 pages. It will just be the end.

I expressed this feeling to a co-worker who in better words than I could ever write, informed me that it would be ok if something major didn't happen in those last words but that I would now have this knowledge stored away for future use. 

I hope that is true.

But I would also take a major revelation from God.

A year in review

I decided to look back at previous posts on Twitter and Facebook before I wrote my 2013 end of year wrap up letter (not Christmas letter those are to hard to get out in time)

I was a little surprised about how some of  my prayers from the beginning of 2013, are the same prayers I am saying at the end of 2013. 

"If you pray for God to take away something because it isn't apart of His plan, dont be surprised when He takes it away." "#womendontloveamanwholovesothers"

When I turned 32 in the summer I remember making a list of all the things I was going to finally do. I am currently unable to find that list but I remember one of them being to see a counselor. To seek help for the things that have plagued my emotional and spiritual life for so long.  

When I finally made that decision this fall it wasn't because I had remembered this list. It was out of sheer desperation. It was a call for help that arouse out of meeting a man who was just as broken if not more broken than myself. It was me stating that I no longer wanted to be that hot headed woman who when faced with trials would ran away, who would start a fire just to make sure the other person ran first, so I could be the hurt one.

So I sought help.

 I now meet with a lovely professionally trained Christian woman roughly once a week. Usually it just involves me sitting there and telling her all the latest drama that arises from being in a relationship with a broken man. And her sitting there telling me that she is proud that I didn't cuss him out, and that I got out of the car and cried in the middle of a parking lot instead of crossing any lines. It's not so much that she has amazingly wise words to say, because often the things she says are common sense. But its common sense I need to hear. It's things that in my hot headed emotionally charged brain I often can't seem to get at. It's knowing that every week I have to sit across from her for an hour and tell her everything that has led me back to her couch. It's knowing that even when I am not praying for the "right" things, that she is praying for ALL things. 

This is not exactly where I planned this post to go. I planned on writing about how I once again am praying for God to take away things that aren't in His plan and realizing when He does that and move on. 

It was going to be about how I once wrote that the problems of our world revolve around shows like The Bachelor in which women let themselves fall for a guy who loves other women. 

It was going to be about how the year is spherical and we always circle back. 

Instead it became about how I no longer wish to do that. How I have made the decision to break the cycle. 

2014 will not end the way it started. 

2014 will be the year in which I and hopefully others, break the cycle and step out of old patterns and start making real changes in our lives. And if we need help to do it, we seek help.