The year is quietly melting away. Folding itself up to be tucked into the past. Slipping into the treasure trove of our memories.

I love the turning of the calendar – an opportunity to begin anew, a hopeful anticipation of what’s to come, a fresh setting of goals and dreams. But I also love the pause to look back – to celebrate God’s faithfulness in yet another year of life. These year-end posts of mine usually tend to be optimistic, as most people’s are – the highlight reel of an otherwise routine set of days.

But please don’t be deceived, and think that the year was just one set of adventures after another. To be quite honest, there were actually many tougher days in 2017 than I would have hoped for – and there were many weeks and months were nothing “exciting” happened, per se – just the quiet habits of going to work, grading papers, washing dishes, cleaning the house, and prepping for another week.

In between, God seasoned these days with experiences that have now become the sweetest of memories – for I did have a few dreams come true this year, and I can honestly say there were moments that I was – as Lizzie Bennet described it – “perfectly & incandescently happy.” Despite the fact that I wrote often about the more challenging days of being single, the truth is that I had a beautiful time being single this year for God continued to teach me about my purpose in this season of life. And that purpose was living fully into the dreams that He had prepared for me – dreams of directing, leading HYPE at Expo with some of my favorite people, being in another show, taking English classes, teaching 5th grade, and writing and speaking.

To those of you who shared in these experiences – the big ones and the small ones – thank you. Thank you for sharing in my joy, my tears, my accomplishments, and my failures. Thank you for encouraging me, for blessing me with undeserved gifts, and for being my friend. If 2018 is anything like 2017 (and it already has some great promises in store!), I know it will be an adventure of greatest design.

Now for the memories …