What I Didn't Know a Year Ago

Im doing that awesome thing where you copy the idea of someone else.

It's allowed, I think.

That someone else is another piece of my heart who lives in Africa, and after reading her blog post What I Didn't Know Four Years Ago I couldn't stop thinking about how absolutely crazy it is to look back on this past year at all of the details of my story that have all led up to this very moment. I think I taught myself how to fear looking back into my past, and believed that looking back would keep me from moving forward. Its almost embarrassing to recognize the casual lies we let ourselves believe, and ultimately we let those lies turn into truths. We let those lies hold us back.

The farther backwards I began to look, the braver I felt. The farther back I began to remember and to process, I was willing to move forward. I was ready to move forward.

I didn't know a lot a year ago. I still don't know a lot, but looking back makes it a lot easier to walk forward with blindfolds on. I couldn't be more excited, terrified, and open to what this means.

A year ago I had no idea how God would redeem my moments of pure burnout and exhaustion and turn them into fuel for my dreams.

A year ago I didn't know that my deepest hurts, the things that were said about me, the things that I let define who I was, were the very things that I can now look at and squelch with the truth of who I am and who I was created to be. I didn't know that I would be able to believe that with confidence.

A year ago I didn't know that I could keep doing ministry. I didn't know that I could smile on a Sunday, or any other day really. I didn't know that it would get better.

A year ago I questioned every day that God laid out in front of my family. I questioned the big and the small, and I doubted. I doubted that there was more. I doubted that God knew how I was really feeling. A year ago I believed that every feeling I had was insignificant.

A year ago I wasn't sure what God was doing to my story, and I was so angry.

A year ago I could not have imagined that I would be find myself surrounded by challenging and encouraging movers and shakers who were ready to run full speed ahead with me. People who were ready to run forward and still be willing to look back at the same time.

A year ago I had no idea I would be up until 2am talking about my dreams with my husband, and that my mind would be spinning with this stirring inside that told me I was ready to move forward. I didn't know that this year I would be dreaming big, without limits, and be willing to throw my hands in the air and say yes. I didn't know that the word dream would even be in my vocabulary.

A year ago I didn't know that I would find myself sitting in a book study that would rattle everything inside of me. A study that is keeping me up at night, reminding me that we were created for this very thing, and one that might change the entire course of what I thought my pretty planned out life would look like.

I am so ready to dream.

That was all a year ago. This is now.

That year that I doubted, that I hated, that I cried and cursed, that year was meant for this very day. Without that year, I wouldn't be able to dream. I wouldn't be able to look forward.

Its easy to say it on a mountain top, and its hard to believe it in the pit. But those years and those days that feel absolutely impossible, they are all part of your story.

Your story can help you dream. Your story will be why you dream.