We had just done the countdown to the new year. I sat there and thought about the year that had just gone by [really fast]. What stood out to me the most were all the things that had gone wrong that year. The things that I would have changed if I could, the things that I really didn't want to see happening, the things that I didn't see as good. I thought about how awful 2010 had been when, in reality, that year had been a year that I'd grown more than I have in a long time. I realized that, while it had been a really hard year, while a lot of things hadn't gone the right way, so much good had happened too. So easily I forgot how much God had shown me this year, how many amazing things I did this year with family and friends, and how much those difficult situations had taught me. I want this year to be different, but I think that I'm going into it with a different mindset now. Instead of the [sigh] 'I hope this will be better than last year' mindset, I want to have the mindset of 'I hope that this year will be just as good as last year was.' Even though trials are hard, and even though everything won't go the way it should, I've seen from looking back on 2010 that the hard stuff makes you grow... therefore we should be the most thankful for it because it's all in God's plan.
