2008.  At least, it went quietly.  I know that there are somethat counted it as a great year.  There wasa historic election; a really bad president is on his way out. 

Was that really the best thing?  Was it the only good thing?  It certainly seems that way.  I had a year that constantly beat me up with one tragedy or set back after another.  It was one of those years where my beliefs were challenged in so many ways ,and I had to become honest with myself about several things. 

Thre fact is I'm in my early 30's and I have lacked what many of my college friends had.  Namely, I lack true ambition.  I've been wrestling with that for some time.  I have seen people killing themselves to get degrees that I sort of ambled into because I felt like it.  I did it for the degree itself and not for the pay raise.  Oh, I got the pay raise, but it was just a side effect.  I gues what bothers me more than anything is the fact that I lack this ambition, and I have a family to provide for now.  I like teaching what I teach.  I like coaching.  I like my kids, but I really don't want to do other things in education.  The money is a actually in administration.  I could slowly get the degree  I needed for it, but I simply don't want that.  It concerns me because I think I should want to do whatever I can to make my family's life better, but I just don't see myself as an administrator.   I've also thought about leaving education to findsome mythical "real world" life with better compensation, but I know I probably wouldn't like that any better.  2008 made me question the choices I've made as a professional so far.  It made me wonder if my buddies who work in finance didn't have it right all along. 

This year also made me admit to myself that spiritually I've been lying to myself for quite some time.  IN fact. I've been lying about it for the majority of my life.  It came to me when I was seperated from the person I love hte most for unavoidable reasons.  I was alone, and I realized that I had let my Faith lapse so much that I wasn't certai how to cry out.  I knew who I believed I should cry out too, but I wasn't certain how.  I had fooled myself by caliming Christianity, but I had not taken the time to study it.  I grew up in the buckle of the Bible belt, attened a private Christian university, and  made appreeareances sporadically at the church of my family's choice, but i had never fully accepted the truth that I claimed ot believe in when I was asked what I believed.  This is the year that I accepted it.  Sometiems, I feel like an adult who has gone back to high school after having too much fun the first time around and relaizing that they learned nothing.  Ever time I study or listen  to a lesson, I am amazed at the truth that comes to me.  I am shocked by the fact that I missed out on all of this before.  

 This year also put in me in the situation of asking myself and my wife if our marriage was worth fighting for.  The answer is that it is.  I have been a lax husband at times and let her down in several ways.  I know that I don't have the "bad" habits that many cite in their partners.  I always thought I put family first, but I realized that in the last year or so I have been a passive participant in the family and that my responsibility is to be active.  My simple presence doesn't mean I am involved.  I have become active and my family has benefitted, and the scales have fallen from my eyes as to what a husband and father  should be.

So, see you, 2008.  Let's be friends, 2009.

Selah.