2018 - a year in review

I'm looking back at all 2018 has brought me. I'm rejoicing in how God has been so faithful and has always worked for my good. 2018 was my year of Humble Submission.

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." Romans 15:13

I left 2017 with the hope that God's plan for my 2018 was going to be better than what I had planned out (and had not come to fruition). But, knowing that God had always been faithful to me, I wanted to focus on His faithfulness. So 2018 became the year of submission. Now, I know that submission is powerful (and really scary) but, I know I could easily submit and still be grumbly about whatever it was I had to submit too. And so in a desperate attempt to kill two birds with one stone (and hopefully learn two lessons at once) humble got added to my mission of submission.

Humble Submission

Now, I had to come to terms with what that would look like and what it would require of me. What does it mean to humbly submit to the Father? And where do I start?

Well, because of where we left off in 2017 the first place to humbly submit was in Zeta. I've loved getting to serve the women in my chapter, and I was so excited to be on the executive team, but I had been offered a spot that I didn't really want. Through the weeks in limbo, wrestling with what my decision would be if given a choice, I choose to submit to the path God had laid for me to become the Risk Chairman for my chapter. Through that choice to let go of control, God was teaching me a much bigger lesson that I would realize later in the year.

The next big, "yes" I took was jumping head first into an internship that took me from Oklahoma to Wisconsin to New York and back. Being on a team with four people I had never met was one of the scariest but most fun experiences I've ever had. I learned so much about loving people, meeting kids where they're at and just holding on to God's faithfulness in really broken situations. But as I made my way through the summer, God taught me so much about rest and what that looks like and how to enjoy it. And learning to submit to that was hard too. Understanding that God had picked me up and dropped me into a single dorm room just to teach me to rest was so stinking cool but a really hard lesson to learn. Rest is not normally in my vocabulary but God, for some reason, has kept bringing it up. And so humbly submit to His request, I did.

The school year kicked off in a whirlwind. I got to be a mom for 48 phenomenal women during recruitment, we added 72 people to Zeta, I was taking the hardest class I've ever taken, and my plans just seemed to keep falling flat.

For the last year almost, a group of my friends and I had been planning on starting a non-profit, a garden, to serve the members of our community. Along the way, we gained a lot of support but also faced opposition. At the start, we believed that this is what God had asked us to do in hopes of submitting to His will and plan for each of us, but as we tested out every option and worked to fit all of the pieces together, we were unable to keep moving forward. So through lots of conversations and intentional prayer, we decided to put our efforts elsewhere, and the garden stopped growing. And here I was staring in the face the first of what would be many large holes in the plans I had for the coming year.

Next up on the agenda was what I had been excitedly waiting for since my freshman year of college. The one thing I had been banking on as a sure thing, being president of Zeta. But in another whirlwind of events, the Lord had other plans for me. And so once again, my plans weren't panning out, and another gaping hole appeared.

For almost two years now I had worked as a Campus Tour Guide at OSU. I love giving campus tours because I love telling people about all the things that make Oklahoma State great and why I fell in love with OSU. But just like all things in life, the job began to change. Our office moved, we hired more people to replace the graduates, and over time I just fell out of love with being a tour guide. And so, at the end of the semester, I put in my two weeks. And once again, another hole appeared in my plans.

But, even with all of these gaping holes, just like the old saying goes, "one door closes, and another one opens," and behind one particular door stood a girl named Sarah. Right along with the theme of things not going according to my plan, taking another little (as a junior) was definitely not on my list. But how thankful am I that God knew what the heck He was doing when He blessed me with Sarah? This girl is pure sunshine and another perfect addition to an already incredible group of people that I get to call my Zeta family. Humble truly was the theme of this submission because I was totally not prepared for what this would look like but being Sarah's big has only made my life and Zeta experience that much sweeter.

All of this to say, I could never have found such complete and utter joy in the sheer craziness of this year without humbly submitting to God's perfect plan; knowing that He is and always will be faithful to me has been my saving grace in 2018. Sometimes, I forget how perfect His plan and timing are, but after a year this wild, I could never be in disbelief of His faithfulness and His willingness to truly work for my good. 2018 had ups, downs, messes and LOTS of mess ups. But with Jesus holding my hand every step of the way, it couldn't have been more perfect. Here's to another year of believing and living out God's faithfulness.

Happy 2019 Friends,

Kaitlyn