For almost 17 years, Brian and I have gathered with the same small group of people every New Years Eve. Some years there are more of us, and sometimes it’s just a few. And every year as we near the change-over, we go around and each tell one sweet thing from the year, one bitter thing (one thing we’re glad to leave behind), and one thing we are looking forward to this next year.
With the ebb and flow of life, we weren’t able to gather this year, and I found myself missing the people and the tradition. There’s something beautiful and sacred about reflecting on life with others, rejoicing with them and grieving with them and looking toward the future with them.
And so, after (too many) months of not writing, I felt a nudge to invite you, fellow sojourner, into the beautiful sacred act of our New Year’s Eve tradition.
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It was a hard year last year—much harder than 2020 in many ways. And yet. I saw God moving in so many big and small ways. He protected, provided, sustained, and blessed. Not always in the way we imagined or even wanted, but always in a way that was good (but more on all that in future posts).
One thing that was sweet: In a year marked by periods of deep depression, the sweetness of this past year is composed of all my moments in our woods. They were my sanctuary; running, walking, hiking, snowshoeing, skiing, sitting, reading, laughing, crying, dreaming. It was in the woods—whether I was alone, accompanied by our pack of four-legged critters, or with Brian and the boys—and surrounded by the Creator’s holy beauty, that I found my ground to stand on.
One thing that was bitter: The month of March plowed through our lives like a tornado, sucking us up in a swirling few weeks of hard events that echoed into the next few months. At less than three years old, Henry underwent his third surgery—with five procedures scheduled. The surgery and hospital stay went fairly well; recovery did not, and so I ended up with him in what was our longest and worst ER experience ever—only to have a frightening close encounter with a man lurking by our car upon our discharge. This, coupled with a few other events that month, triggered some past trauma that sent me reeling until the warm summer sun slowly started to fill my soul with a revitalizing Light.
One thing I am looking forward to: As I turn my thoughts to all the wonderful things this year might hold—new milestones for the boys, adventures with the family, progress on the retreat center, prayers answered—I realize that not being able to choose just one thing is a sign of Hope. No matter what befell us this last year, there is always a reason to look forward. As people of the Promise, I hold to the Truth that all things are working together for the good of those who love the Lord. I hold to the Truth that His shalom is in every breath we take, whether we recognize it or not, and that the best is yet to come. The heaviness of the world is real—but so is the lightness of His Joy.
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Most times, when lost in the beauty of nature or worship or a song or a piece of art or the wriggling, giggling little boys tussling on the floor, I get glimpses of the world as it should be. These holy moments are as expansive as they are brief. It’s as if I can see the bigger story being written, can see the world as it is—as it will be. A dark and smudgy layer is peeled back, and I am overwhelmed by the brightness around me. It’s as if I can finally remember the song that’s been nagging at the back of mind—I can see it and hear it in all its glory. I’m transported to the throne room and can see all the individual moments of all creation each as their own significant event and yet each as just a note in the grander symphony we will one day be able to hear deep in our souls, its melody reverberating in our very bones.
There’s something about these moments where the unseen becomes seen. The impossible becomes possible. The mystery becomes flesh. I realize my own insignificance and yet know to the core of who I am that I was created with purpose and intention. For a few beautiful heartbeats I straddle the paradox of earthly and eternal.
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As I was praying the last few mornings about this new year and the plans the Lord holds for us in it, He kept taking me back to the well-worn pages of passages I have clung to the last few years. Words from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel (not your typical feel-good Bible books…). Yet threaded through and tucked between these words of hardship and coming disaster are words of wisdom, hope, and promise.
And that is just like life. I don’t know a single person who doesn’t daily face obstacles, setbacks, dashed dreams, relationship strife, or any other myriad of difficulties this world throws at us. And yet. Threaded through and tucked between these hardships are Wisdom, Hope, and Promise.
Even in the midst of the darkness, we can see the smudgy layers of this earth peeled back to reveal Light and Life as they really are. And we know that whether we drink deeply of the sweet or the bitter this world serves us, we know there is always something to look forward to. And so it is with hearts that hold both the heaviness of the world and the lightness of His Joy—that straddle the paradox of earthly and eternal—that we can look towards not just a fresh year of days to live through and cross off, but look, ultimately, toward the time and place where there are no more days to cross off or tears to wipe away.
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And so, fellow traveler, I raise my glass with you: to the sweet, to the bitter, to the future.
May the Lord bless you and keep you wherever your feet may fall. May you always seek—and find—the Helper at your side. And in a world that fills our minds and hearts with words of fear and death, may the Promises from our Good God breathe fresh Hope and Life into your soul as you look toward what this year might hold.
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Even if the mountains heave up from their anchors,
and the hills quiver and shake, I will not desert you.
You can rely on my enduring love;
My covenant of peace will stand forever.
So says the Eternal One, whose love won’t give up on you.
(Isaiah 54:10)
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The Eternal One will never leave you;
He will lead you in the way you should go.
When you feel dried up and worthless,
God will nourish you and give you strength.
And you will grow like a garden lovingly tended;
you will be like a spring whose water never runs out.
(Isaiah 59:11)
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Although you have suffered abandonment, hatred, and hopeless despair,
and no one dared to pass through,
I will make you a place of lofty beauty for all time,
filled and overflowing with joy from generation to generation.
(Isaiah 60:15)
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