2018 — Year-End Reflection

2018 felt like a year of breaking and reshaping — a time when everything I thought was secure began to crack open. As I look back over these pages, I see not just the pain of what was lost, but the tender beginnings of what God was quietly restoring.

I started the year angry, confused, and weary from the weight of betrayal and injustice. My words in “When Irresponsibility Wounds Innocence” and “Picking Up the Pieces” poured straight from the ache — the kind that burns through every layer of composure until all that’s left is truth. It wasn’t pretty, but it was honest. Somewhere between the grief and the outrage, I began to see how God meets us right there — in the mess, not after it’s cleaned up.

Through the pain, I began to recognise patterns — the Dominoes of Responsibility, the Domino Effect of Denial. I realised that healing starts not when others change, but when I own my part, however small, and let the Holy Spirit soften what’s become hard in me.

Then came the miracle I never expected — The Gift of Reconciliation. After thirty years of prayer, the message I had longed for arrived, reopening a door I had assumed was sealed forever. It reminded me that God’s timing isn’t delayed; it’s deliberate. He had been preparing both hearts for that moment.

In The Woman at the Well, I saw myself — the one who had spent a lifetime trying to be what others wanted, too afraid to show the real, broken me. Yet there He was, Jesus, waiting at my own well, offering living water to the parts of me that had run dry.

Loneliness lingered in The Ache of Distance, and the longing to reconnect with myself deepened in Journal Reflection 2018. But through it all, God was gently stirring the embers of hope. My prayer in Sparks into Flame captured it perfectly: a simple cry for my tiny sparks to grow into fire again.

Looking back now, I see 2018 as the year the Potter’s hands took hold of the shattered clay of my life. The breaking was not the end — it was the beginning of becoming whole. Each crack He filled with gold, turning what felt like ruins into something precious, radiant, and redemptive.

What I thought was the end of my story was really the start of Healing 💔heARTs💖 — a calling born out of my own restoration. The beauty that rose from those ashes became the foundation for every painting, every journal, every gathering since.

It was the year I stopped hiding my cracks and started seeing them as places where His light shines through.

🤲🏻 My Prayer

Lord, thank You for being the Potter who never gives up on His clay. Thank You for holding me steady when I felt undone, for binding my wounds with Your grace, and for turning my pain into purpose. May every golden seam tell the story of Your faithfulness.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.