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There were quite a few firsts this year. My first time playing on the main worship team, my first time writing so many essays in a year (thanks to HELM), my first time on a mission trip, my first time completing Purpose Driven Life, my first time baking a layered cake, my first time dancing modern, my first time treasure hunting..

And this year I experienced God's intense, never-ending, overflowing love for me about a gazillion times.

And dare I say, I have grown? I'm still learning and I'm still making mistakes and trying so hard to mend the broken pieces within myself and outside. But in 2011, I have grown.

I entered 2011 not knowing what was to come, what with entering Senior High and being nervous about auditioning for the worship team, but now I look back and as so many people say, what a short year it has been. A short year, because time has flown past, but also a long one, because there has been so many experiences.

I see snapshots in my head- Wakainga, my worship audition which I jittered over for so long, all my baking sessions, random meals out with family, all the amazing outings with my dear dear friends in church, 4F'10 crazy class dinner, my sweet 5C13 classmates (hair-braiding sessions), CTs, Step Up!, East Timor (especially East Timor. There's just something about the way the locals look straight into your eyes there, perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps something else, I don't know)- so many moments in 2011.

And I have grown stronger because I have learnt to take up (and overcome!) even more academic challenges and people challenges and I have learned to become more aware of who I am and what I really want (as opposed to what others want, all the time). But at the same time, I have grown more vulnerable because I am slowly opening up my heart to God more and more, allowing Him to search every nook and cranny so that my heart can become a home for Him 24/7. A broken and contrite heart, God will not despise, and so I try to achieve that. I don't do it everyday, because I forget, but especially recently I have been trying to think of myself less (rather than think less of myself).

He must become greater, I must become less.

And so this Christmas I thank my God so much and with overflowing gratitude because He has been so good. Through the good and the bad, He is still good. So many times I overlook the truth in these six simple words: God is good. All the time. And truly I must learn to understand and allow that truth to sink deep into my heart.

So as I step into 2012, even more uncertain than I was of 2011, I believe. I trust. I have faith.

That God will see me through it all. And at the end of next year, there'll be another post like this, thanking God for everything that He had done in 2012, and thanking God that He is always, always good.

2012, Trust.