2013 Year in Review:

Every year I like to look back at all the things I've done, circumstances I've gone through, amazing experiences I've had and all the awesome people God's brought into my life. This is going to be a bit long, but well done for making it to the end in advance! :) 

January: The year started with a bang! I had an awesome NYE in the US with friends (the first in a long time). When I made it back to London work came crashing down with an Ofsted inspection as soon as we started work. A midst the panic we made it through and were given a Good (for those out of the UK teaching system loop, the Grades are: Unsatisfactory, Requires Improvement, Good, Outstanding.) We'd never been good before and it was a huge accomplishment for our school, which had been deemed Unsatisfactory 5 years before. I also celebrated the first anniversary of the reopening of St. Luke's church with an amazing ceilidh (Scottish folk dancing) celebration. 

February: After ALL of January, I needed a break so I took myself to Rome and enjoyed the amazing history and art there. I took a million photos, hung out with nice people in my hostel, stupidly wore converse (not the best walking shoes in the world), and tried as many kinds of pasta as I could. It was amazing to see all the different cultures and religions that have existed in Rome mingling together in all of the art, monuments and culture. It was beautiful. 

March: More than anything else, 2013 has been a time when I wanted to get my health in order. I've never been very sporty, and I signed up for the Tough Mudder in order to MAKE myself train. In March I got serious about going to the gym, especially a power circuits class (think Crossfit) and I started reading too many articles on LiveStrong Blog and my 2 besties convened and had a "Come to Jesus" meeting with me being a bit too obsessed about my "health" aka my body image/food choices... This is the best part about having best friends - when they love you enough to tell you about yourself. The end of March also was when I got very ill, which put a huge damper on my Tough Mudder training and my doctors told me I couldn't train and I was depressed and sick and in general not happy with myself. 

April: Despite being sick for most of April, I took myself to Nice, France, a gorgeous beach area on the Mediterranean and hung out with Abbie, a lovely girl from college that came back into my life when she did grad school in Birmingham. It was lovely getting close with her, and it was lovely running around the beaches and through tangled old cities and trying to speak French. With 2 weeks till the Tough Mudder, I got myself into long runs and lots of adventures at work - like organizing Community Language exams. This sort of forced me to meet some of my neighbors and becoming friends with them has changed me so much and given me a heart for community work. March was lonely and sad, but April was full of new adventures and love. 

May: May brought the Tough Mudder and it was very challenging, but I'm so glad I did it and I will one day get back to training that hard again. May was the month that I finally felt confirmation in my heart to apply for Grad school - Masters of Education at Greenwich University. So after a few years of waiting and planning, I actually applied - the biggest career/personal development I'd done in a long time. 

June: In June I turned 29 and it was a lot of fun - I hung out with my neighbors a lot, got into community at St. Lukes, made it out of exams alive with all my students, and just enjoyed life. It was the best month for me to realize how many people God's blessed me with, people in my life and who love me. 

July: July was full of joy and sadness; I got accepted into grad school and a lot of my mind was preoccupied with financial and administrative preparations for that. My awesome friend Sarah came to visit and we got to go to Edinburgh together, and I had to say goodbye to someone special as I prepared to visit my family for the summer. #alloftheemotions 

August: August was full. Very full. My mom and I road tripped to Maine to see her best friend after an epic family and friends BBQ. I connected and reconnected with a lot of friends and many walks were ambled and much coffee was drunk as we shared our hearts. 

September: Just when you've worked somewhere for 5-6 years and you know how everything should go, everything is different. This summer, our school got a new network and we lost some amazing people to voluntary redundancies, and so September was the month of not knowing how to do anything anymore like print things, photocopy, or even, turn on your computer... By the time we got ourselves sorted... it was October. 

October: The first week of October Ofsted came back again with a new framework and slightly dismal inspectors and after a lot of freaking out and 5am get-ups, we scrounged a "Requires Improvement"... right as I was beginning my first MA class... and life has been a challenge since then. After a quick regrouping, lots of meetings, and data analyses, I decided I needed a mini-break and took myself to Canterbury, where the seat of a lot of British history, and the Church of England inspired me with tales of the saints and the beauty of a very historical city.  

November: I worked and worked and, um, worked in November. A lot of the work that needed to happen from Ofsted happened during November and also the majority of my Grad school class. When I wasn't working, I was reminiscing on my year, processing where I am and where I think I'm going. One of the biggest things for me this year was letting go of a lot of the stuff I was doing and hoping, just hoping, that people would love me anyway, if I wasn't serving them all the time. Come to find out, people do love me, and stepping back and focusing on my MA has allowed a lot of beautiful people in my life to reach out to me and love on me and invest in me and it's been beautiful, even if locking myself in the library and reading education articles till my eyes can't focus isn't always the height of fun. 

December: December is always a kind of culmination - and after a year of learning how to do sound engineering at church I helped lead a team of people who ran our Carols Service - doing sound for an orchestra, choir, and band was insane, but amazing. Part of me still can't believe that I did it! I also took time to appreciate my team at work - the wonderful ladies I work with have been working diligently and part of my mentoring them has included telling them to rest and take breaks - and also trying to take my own advice. Graduate school while working has been a big sacrifice in my life - financially, socially, with my time and energy - I've had to set aside those assets that I used in other ways for this sacrifice that I'm excited to pursue. God, in his abundance, has provided friendship, love, and time for me to do everything I need to do. More than anything, He's been counselling me and helping me prioritize things, hopefully so that as I grow, I have more wisdom and discernment for my work, my education, and my personal life. I know he's trying to train me in loving people, in being wise, in what it means to belong. 

Overwhelmingly this year God has kept telling me that I have enough time... every deadline, every time I worry that my life isn't yet what it should be, He's there reminding me how far I've come, and that He's giving me time to get there. I just have to keep moving forward. I'm excited to see what new challenges and blessing I'll face in 2014 and the friends and family he'll bless me with along the journey.