13 days in and I’m not late or punctual either. I didn’t bother to write the highlights of 2017 because I was simply too lazy, maybe lazy isn’t the right word to label it. I Refused to write something on the traditional timetable, where everyone posts their highlights on social media before the clock strikes 00.00 and the highlights of that year have lost its meaning. I refused to do so before 2018 began, but here I am behind my laptop typing down the highlights of 2017 anyway.
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I met new people & I got hurt by some people, both of these events have changed my perspective on how I view the world and the people in it and how I see myself when I look in the mirror. I used to feel like a victim being accused of not having the right to call herself a writer, singer, and artist. I have learned that sometimes feeling attacked doesn’t mean you’re getting attacked.
I read the bible from Genesis to the book Revelations and learned more about my worth as a person but also about Gods love for us. My pastor said that we often see ourselves as a victim and blame our past for the present for example: “I’m this way because they used to treat me like I was nothing, that’s why I feel like I am nothing.” A friend once said to me; why stay stuck in the past if you can fight for the future?
At the end of 2017, I nearly broke, I was stressing out about everything around me, focusing on something I had to let go. How is this a highlight? It is my highlight because in that vulnerable moment I was trying to find the strength to pray and give my burdens to God.
To make sense of all this; everyone has something, but you’re not the victim.
1 Peter 5:9-10: Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
One of my favorite bible verses that made me feel special and warmed up my heart was Psalm 8:3-5, I encourage you to take it with you through 2018.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
The funny thing about this untraditional piece of writing is that although I refused to follow the traditional way of entering a new year, I couldn’t stop myself from doing the traditional thing of looking back on what I’ve learned.
xo, Gely
