2012: A Year of Surprises

Well, 2012, you have blown me and Luke away.  Or rather, God has blown us away in 2012!  It was filled to the brim with surprises.  It makes me think of this passage I wrote about here by Beth Moore in her James Bible study:

"Wait on the Lord!  So many presents are wrapped under your tree that it will take a lifetime to open them.  That's God's way.  He keeps telling us that there's something He's not telling us, like exactly how this whole thing is going to work out.  This we can know:  it's going to be perfect."

After a period of waiting for a few years in our lives, God revealed so many "gifts" to us this year!  I am in awe as I look back.  All of our waiting was not for nothing!  It was all a part of His plan.  And it was really neat to see part of the plan unfold in 2012.

Surprise #1:

January was pretty non-exciting for the first couple of weeks.  But then we received our first surprise of the year:  Our renters were moving out of our downstairs apartment!  Talk about a scary surprise!  But this "curse" turned out to be one of the biggest blessings when we decided to move into that apartment and rent out our upstairs one.  It was a few months of nonstop hard work as we renovated the apartment, and it was very stressful financially.  But God knows what He is doing!  He always made ends meet, and sent us renters for the upstairs apartment immediately.

It was a stressful and exciting time, but it also answered a few questions!  First of all, the entire time we were going through this, I was thanking God that He had not blessed us with a baby yet.  I can't imagine going through that stress with a child to take care of!  Also, I can now see that the whole thing was just one big preparation for the baby! Everything will be easier and more convenient on the first floor (not to mention, much more cozy!)  and the first floor apartment has a room that is perfect for a nursery.  I wrote this in a blog post on March 7, not having any idea that I would be pregnant within the year:

"...in our upstairs apartment, we had a room set aside that was going to be the nursery if we ever needed it.  But for some reason, I could never picture it as a nursery.  Maybe that's because it wasn't meant to be a nursery?  However, in the new apartment, there is a little bedroom which will be the office for now.  But every time I go in there, all I can see is a nursery."

I guess that's women's intuition for you! But it gives me chills to read those words!

Anyway, sometime near the middle or March, we moved into our cozy new apartment!

Surprise #2

Literally, the week we moved downstairs, we received surprise #2.  And it was not such a fun surprise.  I heard back from The University of Akron after waiting months the find out if I had made it into their SLP grad program.  I was sitting on the couch during spring break, relaxing one night, when I received the email.  I had been placed on the waiting list.  

No matter how much everyone assured me that the waiting list was not a bad thing, I could not be convinced.  I Googled the chances of someone getting pulled off of a waiting list for grad school, and they were not good.  I spent the next 2 months feeling like my last year of classes that I'd taken in preparation for grad school had been a complete waste.  I started re-planning my future, and wondering what in the world God was up to.  I also struggled with allergies during this time so badly that I ended up in the ER after spending a weekend unable to breathe.  To be honest, I was pretty fed up with life at this point, and feeling like God had forgotten about me.  In my heart, I knew He hadn't, but I was having trouble convincing my head!

Luckily I was able to get control of all of my health problems through eating right and taking dietary supplements.  I will be a proponent of this kind of "medicine" for the rest of my life!

Also luckily, this bleak period did not last long.  Sometime during the last week of April, I received surprise #3.

Surprise #3

I was accepted to my second choice of grad schools: Kent State University!!  I remember feeling like I was practically floating after receiving the email that I had been accepted.  I had pretty much given up hope by that time, so it was a huge surprise!  

Surprise #4

This surprise blew me out of the water.  It was a June evening, and I was busy eating dinner and rounding up ice and a water bottle for Luke's softball game.  I heard my phone buzz and casually glanced at it.  To my surprise, it was an email from The University of Akron, saying that I had been accepted!  I remember feeling so thankful that night!  Not only was I going to be an SLP, but I had finally been accepted to my first choice of graduate schools!  Everything had felt hopeless just a few months ago, but God was just making me wait and trust.  It had been his plan for me to be an SLP all along!

Finally after surprise #4, we had a few months of "boringness," which was a welcome change!  We spent our summer swimming, at softball games, camping, and taking one fun anniversary day trip to Presque Isle.

Then fall came, and although it didn't really bring many surprises, it brought a busyness that I had never known.  I'm glad grad school is a temporary thing, because I am not a fan of that fast-paced lifestyle!

Anyway, at the beginning of November, we received surprise #5...

Surprise #5:  THE BIG ONE

Not much explanation is needed for this one, since I've been talking about it for the past couple of weeks!  It's a funny feeling when you want something for so long, and then you stop trying, and then it almost immediately happens.  I know eating healthy has a lot to do with the reason I became pregnant, but I also think taking the focus off worked too.  People used to tell me all the time, "It will happen when you relax and stop worrying out it."

Honestly?  I wanted to punch those people in the face.  Because how in the world do you stop worrying about the dream you have that trumps every other dream?  The thing you've been wishing for since you were a little girl?  But apparently, it was all true for me.  Because when I stopped worrying about it, that's when it happened.

Also?  The real reason it happened when it did was because that's when God wanted it to happen.  No amount of controlling on my end could have changed that.  

On December 31, 2011, if I could have peeked into the future and seen today, my mind would have been totally blown.  

Every year from 2009 until 2012, I had thought to myself, "Next year HAS to be the year that I'll finally get pregnant."  I didn't let myself think that on December 31, 2011, because I was tired of getting my hopes up.  It's kind of a coincidence, I guess, that 2012 was actually THE YEAR.

God sure knows how to pull off a good surprise!

Dear 2013,

I have a feeling you're going to be one of the best years of my life.  I cannot WAIT to see what surprises you have in store!