This was the best year of my life.

I began year 20 with a refreshed spirit after the Lord healed my heart and brought me to high places. I saw the world more than I ever had before. I lived in the Bloomsbury District of London for 3 weeks, making countless memories while falling in love with so many people and so much culture. I spent a week traveling Austria, France, and Germany with a cousin. A stranger on Monday, a sister by Sunday.

I spent a month in the hill country of West Texas. Texas proved to be the most challenging piece of that summer, and in hindsight, the sweetest. A lot of maturing and growing happened in that canyon, and I’m so grateful. As lonely as a place it was, I’ll never hear Bruce Springsteen the same and I don’t think this drone scar will fade.

I moved into the grat house with 3 of my sweetest, dearest friends. Deep fellowship and boundless fun under one roof. From starry sky soaked conversations on our roof to packing fifteen lilies of the valley on our porch. A few parties, a lot of coffee talks in those wing back chairs, listening to records in our sweet sitting room. I love our home.

My last few weeks of 20 were spent serving in the Dominican Republic. How do I sum up the intense and deep change I felt in that place? The Lord is present and moving in the DR and He really loves SI.

I spent my 21st birthday blowing out candles in quarantine and popping champagne on 83rd street 6 feet away from women walking their dogs. I wasn’t expecting a corona birthday, but I am happy regardless.

So that’s my year in review. And here is what I know to be true as a 21 year old Abbey.

1. The Lord is my Shepherd and I shall not be in want. He is my protector and provider.
2. Walk the world and it will grow both bigger and smaller.
3. Let your racket do the talking.
4. Never apologize for being too real.
5. I’d rather be known as gracious and kind than witty and correct.
6. To be unclear is to be unkind.
7. The more space I create between stimulus and response, the more I grow in shalom.
8. Kingdom, then career.
9. “Christianity ought to be as normal in your home as dirty laundry and corn flakes.”
10. Collect bad wines.
11. Argue for your limitations and you get to keep them.
12. A little bit, often.
13. “A person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest, most important sound in any language.”
14. Make. It’s for your creativity, not your ego.
15. It’s hard to be a specialist when you offer everything.
16. Becoming over seeking, every time.
17. Absurd times call for absurd amounts of grace.
18. “Let the name of Jesus adhere to your breathe and then you will know the blessings of stillness.”
19. Consistency, not intensity.
20. Love lightens the load every time.
21. Don’t try to be great, just be solid.

So that’s what I know. It took another 5 months to compile the list, but I’m not in a hurry. Even perusing over the first 6 months of 21, my heart has shifted and my eyes have grown since the March day I first created this list.

Until next year.