Twenty-Twenty-One

 I shouldn't have to say anything about 2020. It was a mad and crazy year. Period.

2021 has its own level of craziness, but at least some things seem to have calmed down. For now.

In my personal life, though, 2021 has been one of the craziest years of my life. Ever. Where to even begin?

I guess in January.

I left my job.
    I worked for a construction contractor for half a year part time, then five and a half years full time. But at the end of December, I left. My family was moving two states away, and after much deliberation and prayer, I decided to go with them.

My truck broke.
    As the only person in my family with a tow hitch, I was nominated to haul a load of stuff in a borrowed box trailer from our home in northeast Ohio, to our new home in Hagerstown, Maryland. My truck made its maiden towing journey beautifully. But on the way home with an empty trailer, I suffered catastrophic engine failure. My truck spent a month in a engine shop in central PA, and came out with a completely new engine.

I moved.
    After a lot of trips, my parents, myself, and my two younger siblings finally got ourselves relocated to our new home in February. My rebuilt truck had to spend another week in a shop, getting suspension work done so I could pass state inspection and get my plates.

I started a new job.
    One of my cousins married the daughter of a local construction contractor, who happened to be looking for help. It seems I fit the bill exactly. Unfortunately, the job hasn't been working out so great.

The weather in Maryland has been maddening.
    IT WON'T STOP RAINING!!!! Working for an excavating company who spends most of the summer installing swimming pools, means we need dry weather. Every time it rains, we lose the day it rains, and often the next day as well cause the ground doesn't dry up fast enough. The days we've lost are almost equal to the days we've worked.

My dad started pastoring a new church.
    I probably should've started with this. Cause its the whole reason we moved. Because after over thirty years in Ohio, Dad felt the call to accept a position in the Greencastle Church of the Brethren, in Greencastle PA. Its just eleven minutes from our Maryland home.

My dad owns his dad's house.
    There is a reason we live in Maryland, and its got nothing to do with Maryland being a great place to live. Cause its really not. But its where my grandad lived till he passed away in his sleep last Easter. And since his house is only eleven minutes from the church where Dad took his new job, that's where we ended up.

My brother was in 'The Chosen'
    You know, that epic crowd-funded TV series about the life of Jesus? Yeah. That one. My brother got the opportunity to fly to Texas and join the team as an extra in the Sermon on the Mount. Will I see him on the screen? No. But its cool knowing that he's there, somewhere in the multitude.

God has been giving me some fastball schooling.
    Between a job with a ton of downtime, a new church family, new friends, and new places to explore, life has taken a pretty big shift from what I had planned it to be. But God has been using that to teach me a lot of stuff about life, faith, and my own identity. I hope to start sharing some of that here, soon.

I discovered, yet again, I mistyped myself.
    When I first got into MBTI theory in 2017, I thought I was an INFJ. When I started learning about the functions a year later, I discovered I was actually an INTJ with strong emotions. On the enneagram, I typed as a 5w4. Well, this year, I realized I'm not a 5. I'm an 8. I was just a super unhealthy 8 who absorbed all the worst qualities of a 5. The drastic shift in perception about my personality has led to some major psychological healing.

I learned to let go.
    In the spring of 2020, I went through a period of extreme depression, borderline suicidal. I came out of that a few months later, no longer suicidal, but also no longer attached to my mortal life. Here in 2021, between moving states and trying to afford major repair bills while working a job with a ton of downtime, I have been learning what Jesus meant by 'blessed are the poor in spirit'. I've been starting to disconnect with a lot of material possessions, and I have become convinced that I am eventually supposed to live the life of a total nomad. So I will continue parting with material goods until I can pack my entire life on four (or six) wheels.

I went to Sight & Sound in Lancaster
    A group from our new church decided to go to Sight & Sound this June, to watch the production of 'Esther'. And some amazing, generous, but anonymous individuals decided to put up the money to send my whole family. It. Was. Epic.

My writing journey has only continued to flourish.
    I am super close to one completed manuscript. And I'm continually cranking out snippets for the next one. You can check out many of those snippets here on this blog, by going to the sidebar menu, where links will take you to a variety of Google documents.

    I think that covers the bulk of it. As I said, I hope I will soon find the time to start writing more articles, because God has been revealing a ton of stuff to me this year, and I can't wait to share it with you!