Your love has ravished my heart
And taken me over, taken me over
And all I want is to be
With You forever, with You forever

– Closer (Bethel Music)

 Somehow another year has come to a close and it is time to begin a new chapter in life. The older I become, the faster the years seem to fly by, which is simultaneously wonderful and terrifying. Yesterday and today I have been particularly reflective (although being an INFJ, there really is never a time when I’m not reflecting/thinking/internally processing at least something), anyway, I was going through old journals and old blog posts and reading through the hopes and dreams of my 12, 16, and 18 year old selves and realizing just how much God has done in these past few years.

I started picking a “word of the year” a few years ago. My word for 2013 was assurance, 2014 was live and 2015 was abandon. It is really neat to look back and see how I grew in those areas in the past few years. 2013 marked the year that I graduated from high school, started shooting weddings on my own, turned 18 and began to figure out how to live life as an adult (growth in assurance = accomplished). 2014 was the winter that I went on my very first mission trip and traveled outside of the US for the first and then second time, it was the first time I went on trips (however small) with just my sister and a few cousins, it was the spring that I dedicated to spending time with siblings (DC with Cecilia, pictures with Rosie, stream adventures with brothers, to name a few). It was the summer that I frantically prepared to leave home and move into college and it was the fall that I moved to a tiny city in Ohio to begin the crazy adventure known as college (live more in the present = much needed growth accomplished).

And 2015. Where do I even begin? First semester of freshman year had been good, but hard. Everything was new and although I had a fairly easy time adjusting to college life, there were still many bumps and hard times that first semester. But coming back in January of 2015 was entirely different. I no longer felt quite so much like a fish out of water, and although I had started to develop close friendships in fall of 2014, it was really last spring that my group of friends blossomed. In fact, I didn’t even meet two of my dearest friends until the spring semester. I have so many precious and amazing memories from those four months at school. From intramural sports, baking together, dance parties, random cry/laugh/cuddle sessions with the girls, spending Easter at school, sleeping outside, and everything in between, it was four truly wonderful months.

At the beginning of May, I wrapped up my freshman year of college and headed home for the summer a few weeks before heading to Ecuador for a two month mission/academic trip. To put it shortly, Ecuador was insane. It was the most strenuous, stressful, scary, difficult, strange, wonderful, exhilarating, amazing, and crazy two months of my 20 years of life. There were definitely times that I wanted to give up and go home, times that I hit rock bottom (getting food poisoning the night before the first midterm was a definite low), times that I felt overwhelmed and incapable of continuing, and times that I felt alone and scared, having no idea why I thought this trip was a good idea. BUT it was through the negative aspects, the really nitty-gritty details of life in Ecuador, the things that pushed me WAY past my comfort zone, that I experienced the most growth and healing. The element that outweighed all the negative moments combined, was the phenomenal and overwhelming sense of peace I had 24/7. I knew with every fiber of my being that I was exactly where I was supposed to be and I experienced first hand the indescribable peace and joy that is found in following God’s will.

Maybe it’s cliche to say that it was a life-changing trip, but I truly believe that it was for me. I might not have appeared to come back a different person, but believe me when I say I did. I came back a thousand times more confident in who I am and a thousand times closer to God. Honestly, my lowest moments were the moments  I found myself closest to our heavenly Father and Mama Mary. Yes, it was challenging, but it was incredibly rewarding, and looking back, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

I came back to the states at the beginning of August, and it took me a few days to get used to American life again, that whole first week back I said “lo siento”, “hola”, “¿Como estás?” and “gracias” way more than I said “I’m sorry”, “hello”, “how are you?” and “thank you”. Never on purpose, it literally just came out automatically in Spanish. And truth be told, for at least the first couple weeks I was back on US soil, I most certainly forgot that I could actually flush my toilet paper again (in Ecuador, you had to throw all toilet paper away in a trash can because the plumbing systems can’t handle toilet paper).

Once home, I jumped right back into photography, and spent hours creating this website and finally combining my personal blog with my website. I shot an engagement session, shared some Ecuador pictures, and shot my cousin’s beautiful wedding, all in the three weeks I had before I returned to Franciscan University for my sophomore year.

Which brings me to this past semester. Wow. What a tremendous blessing. This was the semester where I felt that EVERYTHING finally came together. My classes were hard, but so, so, good. I finally had theology classes that I LOVED and that I actually WANTED to do the work for. I became better (still not perfect) but better, at finding the balance between life as a college student and life as a wedding photographer. I had a roommate whom I absolutely adore (love you to the moon and back Abby dear) and after months of deciding, and then many more months of waiting, I at long last joined a household! (Households are basically Franciscan’s spiritual-based versions of sororities and fraternities, you can read more about them here. Each household has a covenant and unique charisms and spiritual focuses. My household, Daughters of Zion, has five main pillars, Trust, Abandon, Praise, Open, and Heal, all of which are aspects that I have strived to grow more in in the last several years – my word for 2015 was even abandon, haha, I just realized how unknowingly foresightful that was!) Joining a household was something I knew I wanted to do, but I had no idea that it was possible to find a household that was as perfect for me as DOZ, and I have been so blessed by my beautiful sisters!

In more ways than one, abandon was such an appropriate word for this past year. I abandoned my fears, my plans, my dreams, my desires, my wants, and my will all to God. I still have a long way to go on this road to perfect surrender to God, but it’s pretty awesome to be able to look back at how much God worked in my heart in just 2015.  I have a journal that I started in 2008 and this journal only gets one entry every year on Jan 1st. I write down all the highlights of the past year and end with a little blurb about my hope for the following year. On Jan. 1st, 2015 I concluded my entry with:

“I hope to live with abandon this year, to go out of my comfort zone, to embrace life to the fullest and to grow a hundred times closer to God.” 

It was not a perfect year by all means (um, is there even such a thing as a completely perfect year?), I still struggled with the same sins and the same temptations and I still have the same flaws, but I believe I breached the walls of another layer in my interior castle (St. Teresa of Avila, anyone?) and if I can say that, then I think I can safely say that 2015 was a pretty successful year. 🙂

Over the past few days I have debated whether or not I was going to pick a word for 2016. It seemed somewhat silly, irrelevant, and well, just another “resolution” type of thing. But after considering the past few years, I realized that God works through my word of the year and having a word of the year has helped me to have a common theme for the year and I really like that. So, when I started thinking about a word for 2016, I began with praying and thinking about how I want to grow, specifically in my faith in this next year. I had a few ideas in my head, but I kept coming back to one of the lines from one of my favorite praise and worship songs:

Pull me a little closer, take me a little deeper, I want to know Your heart. – Closer (Amanda Cook, Bethel Music). 

Closer. Deeper. His sacred heart, His precious blood. Two thousand and sixteen is the year I plan to dive much, much deeper into the love of my heavenly Father. Deeper: 1. extending farther – I want to deepen my love and appreciation for the Mass, for Scriptures, for the Eucharist, and for the Church. 2. more intense and profound – I hope to grow closer to God in more intimately intense and profound ways.

Having said all that, I hope go deeper with this blog as well and be a lot more intentional about blogging, I still will post a lot of pictures (because that’s me, and when do I not share tons of pictures?) but I really plan on writing more: sharing more from college life, more from my heart, more spiritual posts, and writing more about the just plain reality of life (going beyond the “perfect” life that the select moments we choose to share on the internet often portray).

Phew, this post turned out to be MUCH, MUCH longer than I intended, and once again I just stayed up much later than I intended…(how does that always happen?). But I simply cannot end this post without sharing at least a few personal favorite images from the past year.

 I know, I know, I said I was only going to post a few pictures. But if you take into account how many pictures I had from the whole year (I mean, I took over 3000 is Ecuador alone), I really did only share a few! 😉

I haven’t quite thought out my personal goals/resolutions for 2016, but I do know that God must have some pretty, crazy big things in store.  I am blessed to be serving on the Women’s Ministry core team at my school next semester, and to be on the retreat team for the women’s retreat (which I attended last fall, and which may very well have been the best retreat I have ever gone on). I will be busy with many weddings (this spring I have the most I’ve had lined up for one semester, so we’ll see how this goes) and this summer I’ll be busy preparing to spend four months studying abroad in Austria! I’m pretty sure that next August to December will be another life-changing, world-rocking, incredible four months and my excitement level is pretty high already. HELLO from the other side 2016!!!!!

-mk

(And if you seriously just read all of this, wow, thank you, you’re the best!)