These are the goals I posted last January.   They've been on the sidebar of my blog all year:

New Years Goals

-Write more.

-Be more gracious and patient.

-Be more generous- which means spend less on me (and save more)/ budget.

-Read through the Bible again. Genesis-Revelation

-Re-learn Italian

-Study architecture more.

-Become on the outside, the person I've been on the inside.

-Step into my dreams.

I did write more. But, I didn't really attempt to write. If you get the difference.
Be more gracious and patient. I certainly had more opportunities than I have my entire life. And I think I realized just how impatient and ungracious I can be. But I don't know if I really grew in it. :(
I did grow in generosity. I was intentional and sought to give to others when I wanted to spend on myself. However, I still indulged a lot on myself. This coming year I want to get better at saying "no" to myself. But still, I think I achieved this goal.
I didn't "relearn architecture." I didn't even re-learn ANY. Not a verb.
I read Genesis and Exodus straight through.
I enjoyed architecture more. I spent more time looking up things, enjoying beautiful pieces and photography. But I didn't really study it.
I don't really feel prepared to comment on the last two.

This past year has been a very difficult year. I don't know if I even realized just how difficult until the end. I felt heartaches - real heartaches. I felt fear - real fear. I faced real questions - real tough questions. And a lot of it I had to grow up and do it on my own - not giving in or getting stuck. There were incredible people there for me, but I had to make the choices in my secret heart. In some ways I don't know if I am more the person on the outside that I've been on the inside, but, I suspect I am. I also feel less sure of a lot of things. I trust myself less. And yet, I know I'm more capable. I see more of my strengths, and understand them better I think. I also see more of my weaknesses. I know what hurts me most. I know what I dislike. I know what I treasure. I know what can bring me to tears. I know what I can't seem to make myself say. And what I can't stop myself from saying.

I know the Lord has been faithful to me through every minute and mess and muddled up moment.

And I can't help but smile as I look at this list and think how I failed it - but how He succeeded at it. Because ultimately, I've come to know what I believe about the Word better. I've learned how to be more generous, I've discovered my own failures and become more desperate to be gracious with others, because I need grace. I've come to a place where I care more for things to just be said, and be... lived. And here I am, about to begin a new job, that's closer to my dreams than anything yet, and it's embedded in architecture. How very, very sweet.

Time to put 2011 away. Time to give sweet kisses goodbye, pack away remembrances and look for signs in 2012's dawn. I think this year is truly going to be good. Not just painfully good, not just bittersweet, but sweet, through and through. I hope this is a year for the tender, the kind, the hopeful and joyful smiles. For healing and hope. I hope this is a year I can live unreserved in, because that's how I'm going in. I'm walking in surrounded by risk and hard-held-to courage.

Something in me just wants to tell everyone I know and love, "Let's risk it." It feels a season for it, doesn't it? Like things really could be different all at once when we wake up.

Last January I bought Kristin and I 20 kickboxing classes.   And we haven't gone once.   :/   I assumed they'd expired, but as I was double checking today, I discovered we have a couple more months!   That's one more of those random things I'd always wanted to do, and set out to finally make happen this year.   I have two months until I'm 25.  I thik I will have reason to smile when that day rolls around and I look back on the first quarter century of my life. 

Copy of Stradivar,
Made in Germany
ca. 1920

Love.

24. The point of past my plans.

By 23, I wanted to be married. It was just the number I'd long had in my mind. I'd also come to think I'd be in grad school. I am neither. And I am 24. This is not terrible news. What it is, is the year I haven't planned for. I have been considering erasing my new years 'goals' altogether. While I think I have decided against that, what I have determined is to be very careful not to set a bunch of goals for this coming year. And to hold what plans I do make, loosely. This is the year of the unknown. Of His plans. Of adventure. It is exciting to be taking those first couple steps into the year I know the least ever of what to expect in. (sorry to end with a preposition.) Up until now, I knew at least that I'd be in high school/ Masters Commission/ college. Now...?

I'm just excited to see what He brings- and I'm putting none of my own expectations into the mix- beyond Him doing something great. I'm starting the year by reading Lord of the Rings, and now last night saw The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and I just keep sensing that adventure is going to be more than a catch phrase in 2011.

Adventures require everything, so I don't want to boggle myself down with scattered goals and lists (as much as I love both!!). As much as it pains me to hear everyone toss epic around as a synonym for memorable, I almost think this year will be epic.

And I say that considering all of it's guidelines.

My dentist sent me a Happy Birthday email. How thoughtful.

I love my dentist.
(that was for you T ;)

I'm loving THIS album.

I bought the new Sean Feucht album last night for a little boost to put on Aunt Sue and Uncle Dean's ipod for their time in Africa (they leave today!). I actually listened to it myself this morning, and decided I really like it.

Good thing. It's a little uncomfortable to load up someone else's ipod, knowing that whatever you select will be all they have to listen to for the next couple months. Guess we'll find out in March.

I am so excited to see Aunt Sue and Uncle Dean living out one of the desires that has been in their heart from the start of their marriage (what, 40-some years ago?). Lord, let this be a year for us all of seeing old dreams rise. I was thinking this morning (sparked by one of Sean's songs) about the line in The Great Divorce that says roughly, 'All thigns must die before they can live again in heaven. Even the greatest love must first die before it can be raised. Likewise, the most earthly and weak love can be risen again into something beautiful if it will first die.' Okay, that is very paraphrased, but the truth of the story remains deep in my heart: all things must first die, so that He can raise them up and have them live in Him. The goal is not death - the goal is to live in Him, for every part of creation. Many, if not all of us, have seen a lot of death in this past year. I think this year we'll see life in Him. We'll see resurrection of dreams, not just in that the desires will suddenly spring back to life in our hearts, but we'll suddenly view in front of us, our dreams.



Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
2 Timothy 2:11-13


If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:5-11

Hello 2011, it was wonderful to meet last night.

It seems only fitting that I brought in the new year in a manner nothing like I'd planned or expected. But, it also seems fitting that it was wonderful, fun and done with a few great friends... some I've known since the days of learning to ride bikes, some since first crushes and heart aches, some since the discovery of callings and the setting out for destiny, and some since the journey became real and the dawns came with decisions.

2011- a year of adventure. Of challenges, but growth. Of transition out of one thing and into another. The start of more. The start of it all. 2010 taught me many things. One of the greatest, to not judge according to my plans, but to leave room for bigger doors to be opened and greater dreams to be accomplished than I ever thought possible. This year, I learned how to dream. I learned that to carry a dream in your heart, means pain, trust, and perseverance. To carry a dream also requires that we not suffocate it by our own understanding of it.. but to allow it to grow into what it was meant to be. Dreams are not from our land, but another place entirely. Therefore it should not surprise us that we very rarely know how to accurately identify them, and that very few indeed know how to care for them. We often think there are one seed, and yet they bloom into a very different design entirely. To carry a dream is to carry something that has never been seen in it's mature bloom. Each one entirely new, entirely surprising. And the best way to care for it, is to recognize that it will need to be fed and watered by many (and not those you might think), and allow it to grow into what it is inside the seed... not boxing it in to some small dark box of what you thought you bought when you made it's first purchase.

Yes, I've learned to dream. I've learned to carry this dream. I've learned to let this dream carry me. And I've learned that I know very little. And the little I know, I hope to learn how to do this year, 2011. I think 2010 was the preparation for the journey, learning to follow... we will see where I am led in 2011. But I think it of little coincidence that Pastor Norm called 2011 a year of adventure. (I also think it perhaps meaningful that I am starting this year by reading of one of the greatest mythical, literary adventures, The Lord of the Rings.) First He stirred the desire for adventure in our hearts. Then, He taught us that the adventure is never in what we think we are setting out for. Now, He's teaching through literature and stories how one goes about on an adventure. Or so, that is what my little heart believes it is seeing in these days. I must believe that a story can be used to prepare us for our greatest adventures in life - or else, I cannot spend myself to write such tales.

Oh 2011, you are so mysterious and handsome. ;) I do believe we are going to have a remarkable time together, you changing me forever, and I dare to say: me, you.