End of 2009 #3: A Retrospective

I don't know that I can summarize a whole year on here. As much as I do have a penchant for writing long things, I am invariably destined to leave things out. But I am going to do my best to hit the biggest things, if I can. Just a picture, is all, that I want to paint, and more for me than for you, but feel free to read...because I wouldn't put it here if I was opposed to having readers. All....3 of you or whatever it is.

New Years day (especially the part before I went to bed after the New Year began) might have been the hardest day of the year. To that end, I guess, perhaps, it was my most improved year ever....starting low. But it started low for purely sentimental reasons. Very painful, even still, sentimental reasons. I've already talked about that, in my post directly prior to this....but I thought I should start at the beginning.

In February, valentines day in fact, I learned about my placement at Hillsdale. That doesn't seem as long ago as it really was...it's coming up on a year now. I think I still feel about the same toward that piece of news now as I did then. I'm excited, but also a little sad to be leaving so much of everything and everyone here. That meant something different at the time, but the facts remain the same.

Most of my life has been centered on that little piece of information I recieved on Valentine's day. I've been raising support, sharing about the work, and preparing for my eventual departure from Ohio to that state up north. It's taken a lot longer to arrive at this time of readiness than I had ever anticipated, but I know beyond any shadow of any sort of doubt, that it has all been right...this long journey from Wooster to Hillsdale.

Finishing my I.S. in March remains my greatest single life accomplishment. I'm still a little shocked that I ever did it...but I did. And If you're a current Wooster student reading this, you can too. I'll never forget turning it in, and as much as it seems like a sort of haze, I'll forever remember I.S. Monday as well.

Did anything happen in April? Honestly, I'm not terribly sure.... I'm sure I read a lot and started slacking off in classes because I could....April happened.

Then May happened. And a lot happened in May.

Graduation day, or well, weekend, was one of the strangest experiences of my life and I'm still processing it bit by bit...more because of what it was than because of anything that happened. I remember shifting around from being really excited to be graduating and to have a free weekend with some of my best friends in the world, then falling to lows of sadness because I knew (and time has proven) that things would never be the same again. This was probably the time I started really convincing myself of a sort of motto for 2009: "keep walking forward." I feel like I stole that from a smattering of movies or other things, but whatever...it's been my guiding light all year, because this has been a year full of goodbyes and hellos and great excitement and great disappointment. But I've just got to keep walking forward in life.... it's all I can do.

Immediately after graduation, over a span of 3.5 days I decided that I hated my job as and IV staff then decided that it is the best job in the world and love doing it to death....I haven't had a chance to do it since, but Chapter Focus Week (the week-long, post-finals camp in which the next year is laid out in InterVarsity Chapters) with Hillsdale was the most emotionally jolting experience would could have when coupled with it's proximity to graduation and leaving Wooster. In the time it's been since, as I've been raising support, it's been digging deep in my memory back to those times of loving everything about working with students, even for so short a time, that has sustained me.

And it is good that I had something to sustain me, because this summer was one of the driest times of my life. Aside from two amazing wedding weekends peeking through the bleakness, as well as the Regional Staff Conference, it was indescribably difficult...and it's hard to even remember how hard it was. Fund raising, on it's own, is a roller coaster. Going from great joy and thankfulness as surprises and awesome acts of God's provision come in, and then to great disappointment as things don't fall into place and as people you love turn you down is hard....that, mixed with an incredibly blank social atmosphere in which I lived (4 years away makes that happen...) and less than supportive (at the time) parents....it was hard, if you haven't picked up on that quite yet....hard hard hard. God pulled me through though, and I learned a lot....I'm still learning a lot from those times and these times. His faithfulness is great and real and glorious.

Like I said though, there were two amazing wedding weekends that made for wonderful reprieves from it all....it's surreal, to see friends my own age (kind of...I'm young for my school-age...I have no idea how I'll ever catch up in life, or how life will catch up with me...) married and starting lives together. And it's an absolute blast to be in a wedding...celebrating love is the best thing we can do in life, I think...at least, often, the most enjoyable, and I was glad to be a part of these celebrations of love.

If you think about it, that's what life is all about...any marriage is an ongoing celebration of love (or should be). A life of worship is ultimately a life celebrating God's love for us...and no matter what are lives are, factually, ultimately, and at their best, we are to lead lives of worship.

While I'm on the topic of love, 2009 was the first complete calendar year I spent single since 2004. (fyi, 2003 is the year I was first in a relationship, so for those keeping score at home, my years of singleness are 1988-2002, 2004, and 2009....I don't know why I think any of you are interested in this, but I'm human so I feel the need to document and record dumb things like that). I kind of hope 2009 is my last year of complete singleness too, but I don't know, only God does. As I think about all of these "facts" I realize that 2004 and 2009 will probably go down as the two years that have, experientially, shaped much of my emotional mindset when it comes to dating.... a traumatic prom night experience in 2004 was the source of that...and 2009 was kind of a deluge of emotional let downs....but I have learned a lot through it all, and I'm sure it has not been for nothing. (and yes, again, for those of you really keeping track, I do dislike how much I focus on my love life...on here, mentally, in my prayer life, in time spent thinking about things....but no, I cannot help it)

Fast forward to the last month or so. It was November 22nd, and everything came into focus: I finally realized why the summer had been so hard....God wanted me here until the first of the year for a reason, and the reason has a lot to do with Curry. There's too much explanation to that for right now, but as I'm preparing for the end of the year and the end of my time in Ohio (for now at least...) I'm finally beginning to see that every moment, every event, every single second of every life is completely worthwhile. I have, perhaps unwittingly, made more than 19 new friends in the last month and I'm leaving them in just over a week...but it has been worth it...more than worth it... There is a sort of love that can just exist without conditions, without limits, and without expectations....and it is freedom.

the word that first comes to mind when I try to explain 2009 is weird...and the second is hard. But the third is glorious....because through it all and at the end of it all, I remember that there is a loving God who showers all of us with a love that never lets go...and more than anything else, that's what I've needed this year....love that won't let me go, even if I try to escape and even when it seems like everyone wants everything from me but offers nothing in return. Sometimes this year, I've felt like a ship dashed against the sharpest rocks...but after the collision, after the breaking, is a fall into an ocean that is nothing but eternal, boundless, and, most importantly, unconditional love.

-Zack

"And you're not thinking about tomorrow
Cause you were the same as me
But on your knees"
-Goo Goo Dolls