That Was The Year That Was

And so another year - indeed, another decade grind to an end. I sit here in New Home as I write this evening, the sound of fire crackers punctuating the windy, cold evening silence.

And what a year it has been: laid off in January, getting a new job in a new state in June, living alone until August, moving the family to New Home in August, selling the house in Old Home in December. Almost entirely in a single year, the warp and woof of my life has been completely altered in ways that I suspect will only make their impact known in the years to come looking back.

A humbling year as well. I have never been in the position of losing my job not by choice, nor of the futility of not having another one just "pop" into place - indeed, almost feeling like one was begging to get one. It was humbling as well to have to rent a room, living in a space that was not in anyway my own, away from my family for 2.5 months. And the whole house sale - being completely dependent on the bank to make their decision to allow the sale of my house to go through -was not only a good reminder of the Biblical adage "The borrower is the slave of the lender" but, again, a humbling experience of coming with hat in hand.

It is of passing note for introspective purposes that in fact our net worth is actually less than when we entered this decade. Even in the financial realm, it's as if a great wave washed through and washed out the last ten years.

A great wave. It's an apt metaphor perhaps for the Greatest Wave of all: The Sovereignty of God.

Because, deep down, I am forced to confront the fact that in spite of all that I have done and not done, of the errors created and successes achieved by me, all of this has occurred according to God's plan. I cannot see it, nor can fully ascertain (if I ever will be) what all has occurred.

But it does give some comfort that, surrounded by change in virtually every aspect of my life, that God is still in control of this as well, guiding things for His eternal glory and my temporal benefit, even if I cannot see it. And it fills me with a sense of anticipation for next year, to see why God brought us here and disrupted (from a human standpoint) our lives.

And I suppose that is not an entirely unfitting thought to end the 2009 blog year - a year of change but a year of God's sovereignty revealed.