2013 In Review

I've spent many Decembers dwelling on the things I hadn't accomplished or ways I hadn't been "successful". I think it's spoiled a lot of the joy I could have been experiencing in simply having lived through another year and made new memories or heard new music or seen new places. I'm also pretty good at loosing sight of my present with worry over the future and fear of the unknown. Though I try never to live regretfully, all of these mistakes and worries are a part of a larger story that God is writing with my life, I do wish I hadn't lived in a way that was controlled by these things. Knowing my life has been saved from eternal separation from Jesus should be enough to have joy in today, without worry of tomorrow. 2013 was a year full of growth and goodbyes. Both painful things, but necessary... without the broken, fallen pieces of life I would never see my need for a Savior, the need for redemption. 

I've taken away so much from this year... more than any other year in my life so far, and my heart has felt so much it's hard to put into words. I've made some of my favorite and happiest memories to date and experienced new heartache and new brokenness. God humbled me, broke me down and exposed deep heart issues that have all brought me closer to Jesus. I've cried so many tears of sorrow and of joy for myself, my family and some of my closest friends. This year I was slapped in the face by raw, tragic and broken real life and it's beautiful how God has used all of the happy and the sad for His glory. All of these things haven't ended in "happily ever afters", the trials weren't wrapped up into shiny pretty packages, but I've seen Jesus clearer than before. That makes all of the struggles worth it. My life is full just because Jesus was born, died and rose from the dead. Everything else I have only because of His grace.


Favorite photos of 2013:
(in no particular order)

I didn't take it, but I'm forever grateful to the unknown person that took this picture of my grandparents. It was taken on their wedding day in February of 1954. I found it in a box of pictures I was looking through after my grandmother went home to be with Jesus. She died December 9th, just a couple months shy of the 60th anniversary of this day.  

Favorite Albums of 2013
(in no particular order)

Black Bear by Andrew Belle
Modern Vampires of the City by Vampire Weekend
Days Are Gone by Haim
Let's Be Still by The Head and the Heart
White Lighter by Typhoon
Repave by Volcano Choir
States by The Paper Kites
Pure Heroine by Lorde
Bad Blood by Bastille
Life is Elsewhere by Little Comets
Give In by On An On
The Water & The Blood by Dustin Kensrue
If You Leave by Daughter
Currents by Eisley
Lanterns by Son Lux

Here's to 2014.

xoxo

-c

According to my earnest expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in anything, but with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. 

Philippians 1:20