2015 was a pretty rough year.  If you want more details, I get right into the thick of it in my blog called “The Year God Stopped Talking to Me”.  The last year I had that was as rough as this was 2009, the year my marriage absolutely fell apart.  But what I’ve learned is the hardest years are the years you learn the most.  About yourself, about other people, about the world.  I wrote another blog on New Year’s Day of 2010 called “Things I learned in 2009”.  The things I learned that year were very different, although no less significant, than the things I learned this past year.

These are the things I learned in 2015:

Sometimes God shows up in very real and tangible ways and it makes you ugly cry.

Sometimes God is silent.

For a long time.

And you wonder if you did something wrong. Or if you deserve it.

Other times God is speaking and we aren’t listening correctly.

And then sometimes God is speaking to us and we plug our ears and “lalala” Him away.

Whoops!

Sometimes the things God prompts us to do are easy and second-nature.

Sometimes they are daunting,

Or overwhelming.

Or require bravery.

But they are ALWAYS for our best.

Always.

What He is looking for is our obedience.  Above all else. Because He wants to bless us with other things, with more, more than we can even think of or imagine.

Sometimes that’s hard to believe.

Or we just lose sight of that fact.

And how we handle the little things determines what bigger things He brings into our lives.

Sometimes we have to take a walk through the desert. And it sucks.

Sometimes life isn’t fair.

Sometimes some people are allowed to get away with things that we aren’t.  And we want to whine about it.

Sometimes, we do whine about it. haha

It’s not our job to play Holy Spirit for people.

Sometimes, God is working on things in people that he’s not working on in you. And vice versa.

Let it go.  This is between you and God.  And that is between them and God.

There will be other voices.

Listen to God’s voice above all the others.

And when He’s silent?

Well you certainly don’t abandon the gameplan – go back to the last thing He told you and stand firm.

When it feels like you just can’t, keep going.

Sometimes that’s harder than other times.

Sometimes that makes you want to cuss.

And that’s totally ok.  He gets it. He can handle it.

God’s not going anywhere.

He is still right beside you – even when you can’t feel Him, or see Him, or hear Him.

Hold on to that. Find peace and comfort in that Truth.

This too shall pass.

Because sometimes, when you least expect it, God shows up in very real and tangible ways and it makes you ugly cry.

And everything will be right again.