2017. I was given the gift of quiet. It was a time where I learned to still my heart and listen. I learned to trust…even when it made me uncomfortable. It was a year I learned to observe. Like a sponge, I soaked in as much as I was allowed. I grew and I was strengthened.

The funny thing about the stillness and the quiet, is you see and you hear all the things that you would have otherwise missed. You see deeper into all that is loud and messy around you. Because your hush allows for hidden hurts and scars to safely approach into the light.

I am thankful for all the ways God helped me to learn how to seek a place of stillness. I look back at a loud and noisy year, I see it like a great divide, where my own noise stopped and I surrendered to the place of quiet growth.

We don’t need more noise. This world is loud enough. We need an infusion of perfect peace. The hurts of this world and our lives sting. There is a desperate need for the healing balm of Christ to be soothed over them.

It is a difficult place to navigate. Words are good and need to be heard; but not at the cost of stifling the One still small voice.

2018. Learning to find my voice without giving up the beauty and gift of quiet retreat. Listening, so that I may speak. Being rooted in Truth that is not devoid of grace; being rooted in grace that is grounded in Truth. Speaking life.

Writing. It is going to be an unfamiliar familiar for me. I am nervously anticipating the journey. I am surrendering the ways I will get it right as well as the many ways I will get it wrong.

Be still. Abide. Trust Him. Obey.

This year, will be my year to explore. Moving while simultaneously being anchored. Finding my voice and following Him to places and spaces beyond my own level of comfort, but never apart from Him. Always listening; always knowing: He is God. Letting the truth of what that means surround me and strengthen me.