SUMMARY:
January 1st, 2019… I shared this caption with a carefully selected photo, one to delight my internet community “2018 I romanced God, met angels and finally arrived for my applause. 2019, Badassery is the goal, stretching to new heights, seeking balance and reaching out”

December 31st, 2019… No caption, no photo, just a sketchpad for my upcoming book titled “how to knock out and get knocked out in 365 days”.

INTRODUCTION:
In 2019… I FOUGHT!

THE BODY:
While I was still learning to find my foot in the new year, I had a falling out with someone very dear to me. This was the beginning of several fights to come throughout the year. I fought with everything, anything and anybody. In return, my body fought with me.

At the end of a regular fight, one of two things happen; a winner/loser emerges or there’s a truce. A third option came my way, no winners, no losers, no truces…just lessons. This is the best part honestly.

THE LESSON:

“Conflict is really what sharpens our ability to love” – Dr John Gottman

On a certain day, while I was cleaning my wounds from one of my many fights, God asked me a question and when God asks you a question, you know you’re about to go through a whole course on the topic. He asked “ How do you know you have forgiven a person?”. I’d never given much thought to it till this day, yes we’ve been taught in church but God teaches His children in theory. The words we from the Bible are basically instructions on how to make the best decisions when theory begins.
Anyway, He responds, “when I ask you to pray for a person and you don’t ask me 1000 questions why this person should be prayed for. This means you still don’t see the person through my eyes and ultimately you haven’t learnt how I love”.
As a stubborn Israelite, in my usual habit, I shrug it off until about 2 weeks later. I was reminded to pray for this person…again. So I threw my hands up and decided to do just that against my flesh.
Following this, I ran into this person but my problem at this point and till this day is “Christ! How do I express the love of God that comes from forgiveness in person when it was done between God and I in private?”
This healing; wound cleansing; mind resetting year taught me how to fight and how to love, Gods way (adding this to my list of imaginary books to write).

THE END:

My pre-2015 self, the passive-aggressive, extremely tolerant, scared-to-bark-and-only-whimpers self is extremely stressed about my new love for fighting as I’ve learnt the art of the duel.

It’s a huge psychological achievement to accept other humans in their bewildering mixture of good and bad, capacity to assist us and to frustrate us, kindness and meanness – and to see that, far more than we’re inclined to imagine in our furious or ecstatic moments, most people belong in that slightly sobering, slightly hopeful grey area that goes by the term ‘good enough.'
— Alain de Botton