Happy New Year!

Hello everyone,

Happy New Years Eve! I cannot believe that tomorrow, a new year begins (and that I convinced myself to write tonight!). It's kind of really weird, feels like it would've made more sense for the new year to begin in a new week. But what do I know? :)

I hope that today you've been able to do some reflecting over this last year. It was tough at times, wild and vastly different from what we've known. But I think that if you look deep enough, you'll find pockets and maybe entire seasons of growth and joy that were born in this year. I know I can definitely find a couple.

As I look towards the new year, there are a lot of things I want to do and learn and so many of those ideas and needs were revealed to me in this year. I am so grateful to have been alive in such a revolutionary time in history and such an inspiring time in my life. I don't take for granted the lives lost and the reputations destroyed in battles that we've fought this year. I'm not ignorant of the fact that crazy things are still happening; like a Nigerian boy being sexually harassed by his seniors and people being wrongfully accused of rape. I never really know where to stand on the latter. Courts can be wrong, you know. People can be wrongfully acquitted and wrongfully imprisoned. Lying about the situation just makes justice that much harder to dole out.

Anyway, as I was saying, hard things are still happening. Some people's lives can never be the same because of things that happened this year. Nonetheless, I'm grateful for the lessons I learnt this year. Some lessons took time and I only really learnt them at the end of this year while some where immediate. Some revelations only came after loads of tears, disappointments and stress. I can't pretend to have enjoyed every step of my learning and growing process this year. But I'm thankful that God did not take my discouragement as a reason to stop teaching me. Slow progress is still progress. I've learnt that some of the most importnat lessons and growing experiences come gradually. Just because it takes time does not make it any less worth waiting for. Something I read or heard this week that really encouraged me was 'if the vision seems slow in coming, wait for it' and 'vision gives pain purpose'. Without a vision or end goal, all your pain will be worthless and fruitless. When you have a vision on the other hand, your pain has a purpose. It has a reason. Your striving has an end goal. And when you have a vision that you truly believe in, wait for it even when it comes a bit slower and later than you expected. This year I learnt that inconvenient and unpopular do not mean wrong. Tough does not mean impossible. The things that matter are worth doing even if they are hard, unfamiliar and inconvenient. Guess what? You can do hard things! Being hard should not give something such an elevated status of impossibility.

A lot of important things in my life are happening in this new year. Sometimes I think about them and get so stressed mentally trying to navigate them all. Sometimes I get stressed just thinking about going back to school and having to maintain good grades. The devil is really good at that, taking good things and contorting them. But God is even better at taking what the enemy meant for evil and turning it for good. That's why peace is my anchoring theme for 2021. Not peace as the world gives, but God's peace. Peace that doesn't dwindle or wain in tough situations. I know there'll be times of stress and worry, but I want my faith to be stronger constantly.

Happy New Year everyone. I hope that in this new year you realize that you are enough and that God has so much in store for you.


God bless.



P.S I've almost been blogging consistently for a year!

Dera

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