so long, 2012!

Collin & I agree that this has easily been both the best and hardest year in our lives.  We've slept less, loved more, cried more, smiled more, had less free time, understood less... welcome to parenthood, Fosters.

It's amazing that a year can start out like this:

And end like this:

I was looking at my resolutions from last year, and I'm realizing how far to the back of my mind they moved.  Strive though I might, the energy it has taken to survive this year left little room for much else.  I certainly chose worldly comforts over godly pursuits, especially in the depths of sleep deprivation.  I struggled with how others might view me as a friend, wife, and parent more than how the Lord sees me.  My homemaking became more haphazard rather than less.  My resolve was weak, it seems.

I'm not sad about this, though it may seem that I ought be more so.  God had other, bigger plans for my heart and life this year.  My understanding of my own frailty and dependency on God deepened.  The sufficiency of God is more real to me today than it was a year ago.  And for me, that's enough.  It's been a brutally beautiful year.

In the coming year, we Fosters are looking with great anticipation toward entirely new adventures.  May the Author of our story and Captain of our faith sustain us in the year to come!