Thoughts for the New Year

A Strange Place

For 2019 I want to try creating something every day. 

Creating is life-giving to me, but in recent years I have left it far behind. Reverting to survival mode is not working very well, as it seems the longer one spends there, the less appealing survival can become. 

Writing used to fill a creative void - shared and private. I am hoping every day to write, to create, to sing, to play, and fill my life with color again. 

The strange place I am in is one of discovery. At the same time as I am discovering hard truths and painful times, I am also giving room to more tenderness, patience, and gentleness. Life is fraught with disappointment; could it bring more healing to embrace these things open-armed, rather than beating them back? 

Opening the door, so to speak, to struggle, and rather than bracing for cold winds, leaning into whatever direction they fly.  

Sadness of Change

One major change this year has been my daughter essentially leaving home, moving away and going to college. 

Now I know countless parents experience such times, but it is me right now experiencing this one, this particular leaving. It hasn't even been all at once, and yet I understand now the tears I have seen on other mom's faces as they talk about their grown up children. 

Nothing can really prepare you for the empty chair, the quieter house, the sense that something is always missing. 

One day you are leaping up from a few hours of blissful sleep, rushing to the crib to see if they need to be fed, held, comforted...and what seems like the next day you wake with a start, remembering they are now sleeping miles away. I find it very hard to rest again.  I think I get less sleep now than even those early new baby days. 

It isn't so much a feeling sorry for myself, but more of an acknowledgement that hey, this is happening - it isn't great - but I'm getting through it. 

The change is like... when as a youngster I went outside to look for my special friend, our dog Teddy, and forgot that he was gone forever. 

Or like starting out to play with my best friend at recess, and remembering she had moved away. We've all felt something like that. 

Of course I am super happy for my daughter though, and she knows I pray for her and think of her every day. Hoping (of course) that she makes less mistakes than I did at her age (please God).

 Life moves forward - you have to jump on that train and move with it, however fast it seems to be racing. 

Adjust the Sails

I can't tell you how hopefully I jumped into last year.

It was similar to now. Recovering from a bad flu, Christmas break spent mostly coughing and in bed with a fever (really have to do something different next Christmas), but life seemed to be full of possibility - God was good - hold on to hope. 

Have you ever thrown yourself into something with every fiber of your being, and watched it crumble in front of your eyes?

Just when I think I have learned all there is about a difficult life lesson, Lo and Behold, Nope. 

I had barely scratched the surface of all I didn't know. 

I think I ran ahead of God this year. 

I was Elijah, running before the rain to the entrance of Jezreel, the hand of God upon me. Perhaps not quite as holy or dramatic (not even close, but you get my drift) however, I did feel God was with me. Cool things were happening - it was like a heavy rain after a long drought. I couldn't stop running with it. 

Pretty much the next day after his victory over the prophets of Baal, after the great rain and run, Elijah "arose, and ran for his life..." He "went a days journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, 'It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers." (1 Kings 19)

So that is about where I find myself now. Sitting under a figurative broom tree, feeling like a hopeless mess, like I've made a mess out of everything, and all I can do is hide out and wait for the inevitable disaster to fall. 

An angel came twice to Elijah to give him food. The second time the angel said, "Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you." 

What a lovely and kind gesture. 

Maybe if I wait, some kindness and understanding will come to me, too. 

"And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God" (v.8). Elijah learned that though he could not depend on others, he sure could rely on God. 

Though he was exhausted and discouraged, and it looked like all of his effort had come to nothing, God made a way to bring him back to life and strength. 

When the wind blows hard from unexpected directions, the boat seems like it could sink.                                        

It will be alright though; it's only time to adjust the sails.