I've started this blog post and deleted it four different times now. Words just don't seem to capture exactly what 2018 was about for me. Well... that's not exactly true. There is one word: overcome.
Christmas 2017 I was given a beautiful bracelet by my friend Nikki. It had a navy blue stretchy band that tightened to fit the wearer's wrist, and centered on the band was a wooden bar with the word "overcome" engraved on it. When Nikki gave it to me, she said, "This is your word for 2018. I believe this is coming for you."
At the time I didn't put much stock in that. I had just come back from a leave of absence at the church after the roughest season of life I think I have yet to encounter. I had experienced the depths of heartache and loss, and the last word that felt true to my life was "overcome". The word seems to denote that a person is thriving, and in all honesty I was barely just surviving.
And yet, I put that bracelet on. And it didn't come off. I tightened that blue band and added it to the two other rope bracelets I wear on my right wrist, and that's where the bracelet stayed. If I'm honest, most of the time I forgot about it. It became a part of me in a certain sense - an ever present addition to my person. It became such a natural part of me that I would sometimes bump the bracelet into things, only then to remember that it was there.
Life went on. Days bled together into a blur and the next thing I knew, 2018 had come and gone. Now I have started a new year, but I'm doing so without my bracelet.
2018 ended in the best way I could have imagined. For years I've been trying to discern God's call in my life, and as 2018 came to a close I gained some clarity on what that calling might entail. As I learn to lean into this calling, and learn what it means to be the Kaitlyn that I can be (indeed, the Kaitlyn I was made to be), I have found a peace that I could have only dreamed of in 2017 when I was given my bracelet.
I don't mean to make it sound like I suddenly have my life figured out and everything is coming up roses. But I've made progress in ways that I had almost become desensitized to seeing. In fact, like my bracelet, as life continued on and 2018 became a blur of days, I often lost track of my progress all together. But as 2018 came to a close, I was prompted to finally sit down and reflect on the progress I have made in overcoming.
It happened two days before 2019 dawned. I woke up and rolled over onto a hard knot in my bed. When I pulled back the covers, my face fell. My bracelet lay in the center of my bed, one of the sides of the blue band snapped in sleep. It was in this moment that I had to realize what kind of journey I have been on through 2018.
In so many ways, I have indeed overcome. I have overcome the ever present sensation and fear of abandonment that plagued my life just a few months ago. I have overcome the sense that God is far off. (By this, I don't mean that I necessarily suddenly feel close to God, but that I have grown to believe that God is not the distant observer of my life but is rather the intimate participator - always drawing me closer, because there is always closer to grow.) I have overcome the fear and the lie that I am not "enough", though I know this will be a constant point of "overcoming" that will have to take place for me.
There are certainly aspects of my life that I have yet to overcome, but as I stared at my bracelet laying in the center of my bed, I had to admit, I have overcome a lot. Progress has indeed been made. And while there is still progress to go, I can move forward into a new year looking ahead to new growth.
The time for looking back, for overcoming, is done. Now is the time to press forward into the hope and future that God has laid out before me. Here's to discovering a new word for a new year. May it be as ordinary and as remarkable as my last