James 1:6

I resolved that 2016 will be the year in which I believe & do not doubt {James 1:6}, and the year in which I will my heart to contentment: by His grace that is sufficient for every moment.

Last year I did a lot of believing and just as much - if not more - doubting: of His purpose and His providence. I questioned why I ever attended high school only to be pulled out. Lies of inadequacy crept into my mind when I thought about my roles here that are different from any I've ever had before. Most of the things I doubted out of selfishness, or out of fear of the unknown. I think I doubted a lot because I felt some identity crisis, like I didn't know who I was becoming. (Turns out my heart might be a cross between a senior-citizen's and a preschooler's, with a little bit of an inexperienced farm girl's in there too.)

But some of the things I doubted seemed bigger than selfishness, fear, or identification, and they still kind of do. I doubted what He ordained in the lives of those around me, refusing to believe that it ever could be for His perfect good.

The Lord is giving me the chance to put all of that believing and not doubting into practice, and although I'm stumbling, He is faithful. Just this week I've been remembering the would-have-beens and even what I want to call the should-have-beens, selfishly at first and sometime still. But I know my Father is refining me. What seemed hard to believe last January as I left what I had known isn't quite so hard to believe anymore. I know that spending the rest of my time before college in Bothell wouldn't compare with what I'm learning about, laughing at, shedding tears over, and praying for here.

I used to think of my life in the picture of having both of my feet in two different worlds, but I don't think of it quite like that anymore. Everything has moved from my feet up into my heart, which means everything hurts a little more there but I feel it deeper. I think my heart isn't broken only into two halves, but it's broken into a lot of little shatterings that are all over the place: in the conversations that took place during our year of fundraising; in the horn of the red school bus Veronica and I take every Sunday morning to pick up kids for church; in Caffe Ladro in Bothell and Northtown Coffeehouse in Yakima; in Totus Park's cement slab splattered with chalk paint; in the days spent by Birch Bay; in a retirement community on 34th in town. In the church filled with children's voices singing, Your love never fails, never gives up, never runs out on me. Maybe I won't be able to regather up all of my heart's pieces and glue them all together during my lifetime, but I know that Christ is allowing my heart to grow in remembering the shatterings by believing and not doubting that He is sovereign.