It's been quite the week. I finished up my first year of college, made the Dean's list again this semester, came back home to great jobs and friends, and an awesome softball team. I went to my old high school's graduation last night, and it was good to see everyone again. Today at my church we (a few other alumni and I) prayed for this year's graduates, and someone got baptized.
I didn't know him, but it hit me very close to home. You see, it was exactly a year ago today (well, maybe not by date, but by the fact that it was the day after my graduation) that I was baptized. I have been a Christian for 3.5 years now, but it was just last year that I got baptized (it was a big deal with my parents, having been raised Catholic and baptized as an infant, yada yada, yada...)
So much has happened this past year. I've changed and grown so much. I finished high school, and spent time in the Dominican Republic on an amazing mission trip. My softball team won the tournament for the second year in a row. I started college and made new friends. One of my friends was committed to an insane asylum for a brief period of time, and I continued to attempt to get over the loss of a friend of mine to cancer. My brother spent the year struggling with jobs, college, his girlfriend, and getting over his best friend's death (from cancer). I got published all kinds of places, including Guidepost Books. A really close friend of mine tried to kill herself, I learned to play violin, and I learned a lot from school and my academics.
But one thing has not changed at all. God has remained faithful throughout everything this year. Never once did He falter. Truth is, He's never faltered ever, and He never will. He is unchanging in a way that we, as humans, cannot ever understand. Hebrews 11 talks about several people from the Old Testament who were faithful to God and to whom God was faithful. Then, Hebrews 12:1 says, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sins that so easily entangles, and run with perseverance the race marked out for us."
In light of God's faithfulness, we need only respond with sincerity, love, and adoration. Take this opportunity to think back on the year and see how God has been faithful. You will be surprised at just how amazing God has been this year (though you should not be. After all, why should we expect anything less than perfect faithfulness and love from God, who has never been anything else?)
