As we begin to wind up the year, I’m very nostalgic looking back at what has been. 2020 set the stage for 2021 to be a significantly pivotal year in my life. My mind has been a beehive of activities the past couple of days as I ponder how much my life has changed within a short period of time. I feel like 2021 has been very long and very short, all at the same time, with a compressed time frame that required me to learn too much, in too little time.

I will not romanticize my experience with 2021 and make it look like everything was sunshine and ribbons in my life, or that I met and exceeded all my goals. Quite the contrary! As I grow older (and wiser I hope), I simply choose to be authentic with my life experiences. This year has been tough on me. I have been knocked down on my face more times than I could care to admit, such that at times I just laid there in my pain and tears wondering whether I could ever get up or whether it was even worth getting up. I have gone through pain that words could not begin to describe; I have fought battles that I could never detail to anyone; I have shed tears so premium I thought my face would be scarred for life. You get my drift- It has been a rough and tough year for me.

But as I write this, I honestly could not have it any other way! I have been contemplating about my life and where God has brought me from and all I can say is a resounding THANK YOU DAD! God has been with me every step of the way, ‘Never leaving me, nor forsaking me‘. When people talk about God being a Constant Companion, I’m a living, breathing testament of that.

As I was journaling this morning, I thought of my 2021 journey as a mountaintop experience. In 2019, I had an amazing opportunity to travel to Egypt and Israel with some colleagues. And one of the most profound experiences we shared was going up Mt. Sinai. I had not planned to undertake the 7-hour feat because of a back problem I had for a long time and I knew the long and steep climb could easily trigger my slipped disc and ruin the remaining part of my trip. But on the day of the climb, a friend of mine convinced me and a few others to climb, despite our initial unwillingness. Needless to say, it was a painful adventure, that was further aggravated by my not-so-fit and ill-prepared physique. However, I had friends who helped me up along the way and the break intervals also gave me time to catch my breath and convince myself that it was all worth it. Oh, and worth it, IT WAS! Getting to the top was one of the most glorious moments in my entire life. We reached the peak around 2am and the sense of awe was unmistakable. The perfection of that moment was almost tangible. I was tongue-tied for a while and could only just breathe silently, while my heart did all the talking to God. I had a very intimate experience with God on that mountaintop, that I wish I could relive everyday. All the while I was up there, the pain of the climb was totally lost on me. I just wanted to take in the rarefied air and imagine how Moses must have felt meeting with God and receiving the Tablets of the 10 Commandments. That mountaintop experience transformed my life tremendously. 

Going back to my 2021 journey, I compare my experience to that Mt. Sinai climb- A climb I had not prepared for or even felt equipped enough for, yet it turned out to be a climb that would transform my life forever. 

2021 came with a bagful of surprises for me- I had to fight some battles that I never saw coming, but standing here at the mountain peak, all the pain and struggle of climbing seems like a distant memory. The perfect view, the sense of accomplishment and the serenity at the mountaintop is all worth it. I can only stand still and soak in all the rarefied, crisp air that my lungs can take in.

I encourage you to take a step back from all the festivities of this merry season and audit your self and keenly analyse how your year has been and its effects on your life. Some of the questions you could ask yourself include: 

1. Who have I become in 2021? Am I proud of myself?

2. What am I celebrating this year? What areas of growth can I point at?

3. What areas of my life do I need to improve on moving into 2022?

4. What are my key learnings for this year and how am I going to assimilate these lessons moving into 2022?

The questions are endless because you know yourself better. Get as creative as possible. But I urge you to embrace your 2021 experience in its entirety- the good, the bad and the ugly. It all shaped you in one way or the other- I hope it shaped you for the better as it did me.

Cheers to many beautiful mountaintop experiences in the future! Merry Christmas Folks.

Always,

Posh 💕