21 gifts of 2012

This last year of my life, had I been the master planner, would have looked a lot differently than it did. I didnt know most of the things that happened were going to happen, and I couldn't have predicted the tremendous amount of growth I experienced. You see, thats why its not up to me. I could've painted the last year of my life with the best colors in my book, but it still doesn't even compare to what the real Painter paints when it is up to Him and not me. He showed me what His plan is like when I just sit back and let it unfold. At times, it wasnt the plan I would've chosen, but it was better in the end. I learned one huge lesson this year that I hope will play out in every next year of my life: the act of gratitude. I realized, through many circumstances, conversations, and a life-changing book, that gratitude makes everything enough, and the littlest things become huge gifts from a Father who knows and loves me immeasurably more than I know and love Him. In sequence with that theme, I must count my blessings over and over again. I am blown away by the gifts of this year, and looking through my obnoxious amount of pictures from all of 2012, it is hard to even narrow down the gifts to a few specific blessings. Bear with me as I try to recount the gifts and highlight a few.


1. I brought this year in with a huge gift. About 200 of my closest friends were in and out of my house last year on new years eve. I felt extremley loved and honored that people traveled, arranged, and showed up at my house to bring in a year of blessing with me.

Just a few of the many who rang in 2012 with me.

2. I learned a lot about celebrating people this year. That people are meant to be celebrated. We were created to be loved and to love and that means celebrating even the littlest things. I felt so celebrated and especially by friends who know me best. I am so blessed to be in a place where I am known and celebrated by people alongside me.

Celebrating Mary Dittmar day, 2012. 

3. People showed up. A lot. The beginning of this year was hard for me. Life isn't always easy even with a big and powerful God on your side. So many of my friends walked through dark and the light times with me. I am so thankful for the faithfulness I have experienced through friendships centered around the grace of Jesus. I could write a whole blog on everyone who showed up in the last year for me, but there would not be enough time to do it justice. 

Thankful for you, Karly, and how you 

have been my fan and showed up faithfully.

4. 2012 was home to sweet reunions  I am so thankful that people are put in my life for seasons but I am able to see them throughout difference seasons. Being a part of Young Life makes the world very small and connected, making these reunions simple and easy to come across. Blessed to see many friends from my summer staff in 2011 throughout 2012.

Summer staff of June 2011, 

you people will forever be a gift.

5. Speaking of renuions- what better way to reunite than at a baby shower! My sweet Young Life leader had a baby this year and that was one of the coolest things for me to experience. I saw her and her husband meet, fall in love, get married, and now there is another little human being who is half of Robert and half of Kristy. I was so touched and honored to meet this baby boy only hours after he was born, and to walk with Kristy through the thick and thin of welcoming another love into this world. I am encouraged that I still have great friendships with my Young Life leader and friends made in my high school club.

This woman has impacted so many lives

 and now she gets to be a real mom!

6. I lived on a hall with my best friends. I mean, how cool is that? Every time I think of the "flourth" I cant help but be amazed by the gift that it was. I expereicnced true community in the last year, and espescially on this hall with my friends. I was so blessed to have a built in family during the rollercoaster that is sophomore year of college. Walking through life with these brothers and sisters is something I never want to take for granted.

Whole flourth not pictured. 

I love these people and the life we share.

7. People let me tell you about my beeeessstt friends. These girls. Now known as the BGC, these friends are people who showed up constantly in 2012. Wrestling through a plan that is unexpected and not our own with these girls has been incredible. We have crossed paths for a divine reason and the way we do life together is nothing but a gift. I am so thankful to live with girls who know me, know each other and know the Lord. 

Thank you for always making me feel incredibly known, girls. 

8. Family. Duh. This year was home to some hilarious times with my little family. I am so blessed to come from people who love and support me, who love traditions, and who value laughter and love.

9. Sometimes when I think about it I still cannot believe I am a Young Life leader. This is the hardest, best, most rewarding, most draining, most suiting, most full call from the Lord I have ever had the opprotunity to answer. This last year was a roller coaster indeed, but I have never felt more blessed to be in the lives of high schoolers alongside this team. 

Thank you, team Tabb, for showing grace to me 

and to high schoolers with the ferver that you do.

10. A summer of simplicity. Probably one of the coolest lessons I could learn. I had huge plans for this summer, extravagant plans of doing big things with big names. However, God called me back to Arlington to be a nanny and well, as un-extravagant as that sounds, it was exactly what I needed. Duh, He knows me. Not many of my friends were home and I spent more time alone or sleeping than I have in the past 4 years of my life combined. The sweetest thing about slowing down was realizing that life is meant to be lived simply, simply lived. This summer I threw off many shackles that so easily entangle my life, and realized how basic and sweet my path could be.

Cheers to nights on the porch, 

a new found love for tea, and feet up on the table.

11. We all know that this girl loves being a Young Life leader. One of the sweetest parts of that call is a trip to summer camp. This week is prayerfully looked towards the whole year and it is one of the best weeks of my lives every time I go. This week in particular was nothing less than spectacular  Incredible conversations, laughter, and a great picture of the full-life we were all intended to live made this week with these girls a week that changed my heart forever. I am so blessed to walk through life with girls like these and because of this week, things will never be the same. 

You are loved far more than you will ever know, sweet girls.

12. Remember how I just talked about opportunities? This girl- the girl who loves comfort and staying still- was given chances to take huge risks. What is life without risk? Pretty boring. I've experienced a risk-less life and unless we step out of the boat, we will not learn how to lean on the Creator of risk. Its a risk in and of itself to give authority to an unseen God, and that is the best risk I was given to take. I am so thankful for the gift of risk this year, the gifts that came from risk, and the risks that came from gifts. Just a small little risk was a sweet adventure to West Virginia that resulted in some stories that will be told at weddings, I am sure.

Blessed to have friends to risk life with me.

13. The gift of a call- a phone call- from a family who just needed a part-time nanny. How I had no idea that these girls would change my life. It was such a gift to be a nanny this summer of 2012. I was so blessed to go through life with these two girls created for a joyful life. I learned so much by walking... or running... alongside these energy filled 6 and 10 year old girls, who were strangers in May and family in August. Thank you for an incredible job, Lewis family!

You are so loved and made for so much more. 

14. For the last three years a huge gift has been a trip to Little Gasperilla Island with dear friends. I have written many blog posts about this island, and it deserves many more. This island is a home of sorts- a home to rest, and a trip to the big house at the end of the island came at perfect time this year. I got to experience this piece of heaven with sisters who mean the world and more to me, and I got to meet new  friends-of-friends who love and care for my sweet sister-friends when I am not around. The Creator created this island so we could do nothing but run to Him while we are there, and that is exactly what we did.

I think heaven will look like this, with my beloved sisters by 

my side walking into the forever-sunset.

15. Many dear friends of mine got married in 2012. Three couples to be exact. This year was home to the first weddings of my friends, the first of many I hope! What a gift it was to me to see three testimonies to the Lords faithfulness in my friends life. I cant help but be joyful for the love in the bride-and-grooms eyes a the alter, and the sweat dropped on the dance floor after. 

Incredibly blessed to watch Sean and Emily fall in love this past year.

16. These friends. Oh, these friends. This new school year in the fall of 2012 started off on the right foot with many late nights of joy and long meaningful conversations. What a gift during that first week to have our new living room filled with friends who walk through life together, the good and bad, all in hopes of pointing each other towards the ultimate truth. I am so blessed to have people who know and get me!

I will choose sitting around a living room with these friends over anything. 

17. New freshmen at CNU. You know who you are. This room was the first freshmen fellowship of fall 2012 and my heart just jumps to think about all the new leaders that this class will bring out. Although our numbers dwindled down, the joy did not. I have experienced so much of the Fathers faithfulness through the freshman this year, and I am so thankful to have met new sisters and brothers to be a part of this sweet sweet CNU family. 

The next room of heroes.

18. I dont mean to be obsessed with being a Young Life leader or anything but... I am obsessed with being a Young Life leader. This year was home to so many rich friendships with high school girls, I can see them as nothing but an undeserved gift from a God who loves me and loves them more than they will ever know. These girls below are just a few of the girls I have gotten to walk with more and more in the last year. My life is so much fuller because of these friendships. I am so blessed to be their leader and friend. 

Thank you for letting me walk beside you girls. 

19. More and more adventures. I cant not write about the hurrication! Being evacuated is not convient but it is home to some of my favorite memories of college. I am so blessed that the Lord knows when we need memories and gives us opportunities to make those. I loved the week I got to spend with these girls (and more!) laughing and living and realizing how out of control of this world we really are.

May I never forget #hurrication2k12 

20. Speaking of not planning my year, I could have never envisioned or planned crossing this finish line! It was just a far off dream that became reality in 2012, as I trained, pushed, sweated, and endured the accomplishment that is a 13.1 mile race. This was one of the richest times of my life, where I experienced much celebration and encouragement from those around me. I wanted to race this race because I was sick of sitting around waiting for the right time to do things I wanted to do. This race taught me that goals can be easily met when you've got a big Friend on your side through it all.

Crossing that finish line was one of the biggest exhales of my life. 

21. This night. These people. This life. Just always a gift. As I wrote about in my last blog, this night was clearly a gift for the books. I was surrounded by so many people who have seen me through it all. So many people who are beautiful inside and out. So many joyful voices chattered at the dinner tables as we celebrated another year of life together and the gift of Christmas- that one birth changed all our lives and let us meet each other  This past year was a year of gifts, and my net is always a gift. I am so blessed to call so many of these brothers and sisters friends for so long. So blessed that I get to come home to insane community and so blessed that as we grow up and in some ways a part, we have a God who calls us together, may it be only once a year, to remember where we came from and how this home is not our real Home. 

Ya'll have brightened my life for so many years now, 

you are each a gift to me.

I mean, that does not even give this last year justice. This year I realized how life is just a series of gifts that we dont deserve, promises that are always met, and full of people who leave footprints on our life forever. I realized that life and life with Jesus is not as complicated as we make it, and its actually quite simple- to act justly, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. My God showed me how to walk alright- or should I say dance- and how to do it in a way I was least expecting, only to rely on Someone who was not myself or the friends around me. 2012 was a year of blessing to say the least, a roller coaster with a mighty random track, all coming together to harmonize into one big melody that I never wish to forget. I know I say it a lot, but I am so blessed God chose me to live the life I get to live. My only hope for 2013 is that I will not throw off the glasses of gratitude I was taught how to use, and that I will only walk closer with my Creator, love the created better, and take more and more risks. I cannot wait to see another song played out and another year of my life fearfully and wonderfully planned by a God who knows I love dancing with Him.