IDareToHope

32 has been an excellent year. Possibly one of my most favorites. And I don’t say that lightly. I’ve had a short-lived habit of reviewing the end of the year around either my birthday. Today I ransacked my house, looking for the journal I just finished, in order review some older entries around my birthday in previous years. I was not able to find it. I must be getting old, misplacing more things, growing more forgetful. 🤦‍♀️

Last year some sweet Nome friends and I sat around a kitchen table and, after I blew out candles on a cake, we talked about my hopes for the next year. I told them: I wish for this next year to be one of “health.”
Little did I know how true that would become! ♥

I had been seeing a dietician periodically for the previous year, always making and failing plans to eat healthier, increase my steps, etc. I realized I finally needed to move, see this post for further review of this beginning. Exercise has become a very regular habit for me and I usually make 4+ gym visits in a week. Now if someone would just show me how to not look like an idiot when using the weight machines… 🙈

But even sweeter than the new exercise habits was one of spiritual movement. God was prompting me that spiritual health is of even greater importance than physical health (1 Timothy 4:8), and He helped introduce morning quiet times into my weekdays, at a more consistent rate than ever before. Time in the Word and prayer has been growing my relationship and love for my Father. “Just a closer walk with thee, dear Lord.”

I’ve met some really happy goals this year, including hiking to the top of Anvil Mountain twice this Summer, and a Butte Hike with some sweet hiking buddies.

Year 32 has also included adventure in… relationship. I’ve been getting to know a special someone since June which has led to many smiles, much soul-searching, and prayers. Definitely a learning experience, and a really happy one. 😊 More hopefully to come about that someday.

Year 32 has cut out much more screen time and included many more books. Some favs I’ve completed include:
Evidence Not Seen
Another Gospel?
God’s Smuggler
George Muller of Bristol
Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus
Now don’t ask me how many I’ve started and yet to finish….. but we’re getting there. 😃

Year 32 included some special time with my Van Diest Grandparents, with a trip to Washington in March and again in June. It is the year my Grandpa Van Diest went to Heaven. And the year I got to spend a month with my Grandma Van Diest in Washington, time for which I’m very thankful. It’s the year I visited the Astoria Column 3 times, though only twice on purpose. Ask my cousin AnaMaria about that sometime… 😂

Year 32 has zoomed by, especially the transition of Summer to Fall, and Fall into Winter. My return from Washington plopped me into the last week of my dear friend RuthAnn and her Glaser Gals being here in Nome. After that was desperate berry picking, Church Family Camp, more berry picking, beach time as much as possible, and then I was off to visit a special someone in September. October snuck past me with time back in the gym as outside grew colder, stunning sunsets, Women’s Retreat at church, and a few new culinary escapades, including finally using my Dutch oven for the first time!

I don’t really have a theme for this next year beyond it being my “Jesus Year,” as year 33 is sometimes called. I’m so thankful to my Father God to be able to look back and see the growth that has happened in Year 32. Too often I’ve arrived at another birthday, feeling like I’ve nothing to show for the last year other than pure struggle. I’m thankful for the goals that I’ve met, for the sweet and bittersweet moments alike, for the love and the loss, for the work that I know I’ve put in, and the work that the Father is doing in my heart.

I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:10-14