How I've Changed in the Past Year

Good Lord.

My days are so different than this time last year.

This time last year, I was drowning.

This time last year, I had a gazillion product reviews, a newborn baby, two toddlers, and a messy marriage.

This time last year, I couldn't even see the shore to have a hope for safety.

This time last year, I was in an unending fog.

This time last year, I wanted to run away.

This time last year, I felt so incredibly alone.

This year is so much different.

There are days, sure, where the fog comes back and the hard days are hard and the shitty days are even harder. But to feel my head above water? To feel that sense of "Okay, this day will end and tomorrow will be better," that makes all the difference.

I didn't have that last year. I had a "This day will end and the night is even worse and tomorrow I'll want to hide where no one in the world can find me." That was my every day last year.

I don't need to list out all of the reasons that it was shitty, it just was. And you have your own personal reasons as to why this moment in time is hard, or that moment in time was hard, or next week will be hard. No matter the reasons, sometimes this is just so dang hard.

But I look at this past year, not so much with pride, but with a feeling of soldiering through the trenches, and coming out alive -- and not really only alive, but thriving. I don't look at this past year with a sense of "Damn, I'm good, I made it," but with the humility of "You got me through this. You lifted me by the bootstraps, and you waded through the mud with me, and you got me through this."

Through every moment of insanity that I felt, He was there.

Through every hour of heartache I felt, He was there.

Through every minute of hopelessness I felt, He was there.

He got me through the trenches. He held me all the way.

It wasn't through human beings, though, they can work wonders in His name; it wasn't through my own devices; it wasn't through strength. It was all, always, all the ways, solely, Him.

This time last year, I was in the depths of despair.

This time last year, I didn't know how I would make it to tomorrow -- in my mothering, in my marriage, as a woman.

This time last year, I was being held by the Father.

This time last year, I was given a hand as a rescue.

This time last year, He was clearing the muck so that I could continue the walk.

This time last year, He was holding me as the seas threw me about.

This time last year, I was not alone, despite how incredibly alone I felt.

And you? You aren't either. Despite how incredibly alone you feel or have felt or will feel tomorrow.

These seas will toss us around like rag dolls, this life, this world, this chaos. And all the while, we will be held, rocked, secured by our Father.

Oh, how I've changed. How you'll change. How your spouse will change. How your children will change. And all the while, we will be held, we will be rocked, we will be secured by our Father.