new year, same season
I welcomed 2015 in bed while my tender-hearted husband tried getting sweetly sentimental on me about New Years. I lay there listening and nodding and smiling but feeling absolutely none of the same sentiments. And I sit here tonight while candles flicker and the holiday dust settles and I'm just not feeling this new year.
2014 is not on my list of favorite years. Too many hours with a seatbelt strapped around me, too many days with a Faraway uniform on, too many nights in brothers' beds, too many months wondering how we will pay those bills, too much of the year we've spent living elsewhere than our apartment. I've been blatantly ignored multiple times (instead of just saying "No thank you we aren't interested in hearing about your ministry"). The Sundays I've dreaded going to church because of all the people there we "couldn't get a hold of". The clothes/accessories/money/gift cards we've lost amidst all the moves. The hundreds of messages/texts/phone calls I've reluctantly sent. The dozens of times we've left Ames wishing we could stay. The four days we enjoyed our Christmas decorations. The one brother who no longer calls himself a Christian, which is one too many.
Guys, this year was exhaustingly hard. And the other night when I couldn't sleep, I just wept as I lay there, grieving all this year lacked, the toll it took on my heart. And the tears came harder as my pessimistic self realized that the year may be over, but this season is not. Winter still unmercifully rages on.
I've tried to come up with some encouraging conclusion from this year, of which the majority entailed support raising and food service and living with parents. I just can't think of anything. And it doesn't seem fair that our first year of marriage was like this. And goodness when will we be done support raising? And then that guilty thought, "Be thankful you aren't living amidst genocide in Africa, or weren't born into a Chinese orphanage, or aren't fleeing ISIS. That's real suffering. Your circumstances are so much better than theirs."
Well, maybe the reason it still feels like suffering is because it is, and because the answer to suffering isn't better circumstances.
My only comfort is that I have a God who doesn't speak advice or commands into my suffering, rather, He speaks His Word, His Living Word, His Son, into it. He sends Jesus to walk with my suffering, to experience the grief, the lack, the unmet expectations and hopes. We have One who wasn't afraid to enter into our suffering, One who sat with us on unending road trips, who stood beside me as I made phone calls, who had no place to call His home either.
The answer to why? isn't here, but Jesus is. Indwelling, filling, beautifying the dirty crevices of my soul while desires remain unfulfilled and circumstances remain discouraging. He does not run from the mess, but embraces me in the midst of it. He lays awake with me when anxiety shoos away sleep. He hears my cries, He sees my pain, He knows. Knows exactly, perfectly, wholly.
And astoundingly, He bestows eternal meaning upon 2014. No cry without purpose, no grief without glory, no road without a reason. I can rest in the hope that last year meant something profound, important, necessary, and beautiful, and that's what gives me strength for this next one.
Happy New Year, friends.
2014 is not on my list of favorite years. Too many hours with a seatbelt strapped around me, too many days with a Faraway uniform on, too many nights in brothers' beds, too many months wondering how we will pay those bills, too much of the year we've spent living elsewhere than our apartment. I've been blatantly ignored multiple times (instead of just saying "No thank you we aren't interested in hearing about your ministry"). The Sundays I've dreaded going to church because of all the people there we "couldn't get a hold of". The clothes/accessories/money/gift cards we've lost amidst all the moves. The hundreds of messages/texts/phone calls I've reluctantly sent. The dozens of times we've left Ames wishing we could stay. The four days we enjoyed our Christmas decorations. The one brother who no longer calls himself a Christian, which is one too many.
Guys, this year was exhaustingly hard. And the other night when I couldn't sleep, I just wept as I lay there, grieving all this year lacked, the toll it took on my heart. And the tears came harder as my pessimistic self realized that the year may be over, but this season is not. Winter still unmercifully rages on.
I've tried to come up with some encouraging conclusion from this year, of which the majority entailed support raising and food service and living with parents. I just can't think of anything. And it doesn't seem fair that our first year of marriage was like this. And goodness when will we be done support raising? And then that guilty thought, "Be thankful you aren't living amidst genocide in Africa, or weren't born into a Chinese orphanage, or aren't fleeing ISIS. That's real suffering. Your circumstances are so much better than theirs."
Well, maybe the reason it still feels like suffering is because it is, and because the answer to suffering isn't better circumstances.
My only comfort is that I have a God who doesn't speak advice or commands into my suffering, rather, He speaks His Word, His Living Word, His Son, into it. He sends Jesus to walk with my suffering, to experience the grief, the lack, the unmet expectations and hopes. We have One who wasn't afraid to enter into our suffering, One who sat with us on unending road trips, who stood beside me as I made phone calls, who had no place to call His home either.
The answer to why? isn't here, but Jesus is. Indwelling, filling, beautifying the dirty crevices of my soul while desires remain unfulfilled and circumstances remain discouraging. He does not run from the mess, but embraces me in the midst of it. He lays awake with me when anxiety shoos away sleep. He hears my cries, He sees my pain, He knows. Knows exactly, perfectly, wholly.
And astoundingly, He bestows eternal meaning upon 2014. No cry without purpose, no grief without glory, no road without a reason. I can rest in the hope that last year meant something profound, important, necessary, and beautiful, and that's what gives me strength for this next one.
Happy New Year, friends.
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