the end of 2011 through the summer of 2012 was the hardest year-ish of my life. i won’t divulge all of the details, because, although they affected me directly, the details are not mine to tell (and furthermore, if anyone pretends to know all of these details…i PROMISE you, they don’t). in short, i was betrayed in almost every way imaginable by friends and mentors. people made decisions for my life without my consent. decisions that affect my every day life, still, to this day. as details emerged over those months, i had a full range of emotions. from anger, to resentment, to sadness, to anything and everything in between. i can honestly say, i was depressed for quite some time. it was scary. it scared me. my life was out of my control and i hated that.

forward to the week of my birthday, august 2012. i sat in church service and my pastor talked about God. he talked about who our God is. how powerful He is, how perfect He is, how His will is perfect, and everything He is is greater than us and our wills and plans. and it hit me like a ton of bricks. my God is greater than me. it sounds so dumb, i know. i have a Bachelor’s degree in Biblical Studies, so believe me, i KNOW how dumb it sounds. but it was a revelation in that moment.

and i decided that i needed to change, i didn’t want to be like the people i know who are 40 and 50 years old and scrambling to control their lives and other peoples lives and every freaking situation they are in. those people had manipulated me into something i wasn’t and i did not want to be like them for one more second of my life.

that’s why i got this tattoo. it reminds me that God is God and i am not. God is greater than everything in every way imaginable. it’s a constant reminder to keep Him in the place He deserves…FIRST. before dreams and plans and feelings and people and church and serving and EVERYTHING. He is number one and i can trust Him fully. NOTHING and NO ONE can change that. if you want the satisfaction of a good reputation at the expense of mine, you can have it. if you want my job, you can have it. if you want to treat me horribly behind closed doors and pretend like nothing happened, go right ahead. you took all of those things anyway. you can take anything in this world from me, you will never ever change my #1.

[side bar: i don’t say any of this to get sympathy or to brag or whatever. i say this because i know that a lot of people 1- noticed that something was different or 2- were affected by what i was affected by or 3- are also going through a very hard time. i know that sometimes we walk through horribly painful things so that when someone else is going through it, we can share our story of how we made it. and kids, i made it.]

and that is why 2O12 was the best and worst year of my life.