In these darker December days, I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking my 2023 was difficult. A trial. “I’ll be glad to turn the calendar page.”
And I know for some of you, the entire year has been this way. You’ve had health concerns for yourself or your family members, job loss or worries that you might lose a job, housing loss, relationship conflict that doesn’t seem to have a resolution. Some of you have faced the most unimaginable losses and griefs.
I’ve walked with my people through these things, and it’s been my honor to do so, but this wasn’t the way my year unfolded. There were no tragic circumstances for me this year, thanks be to God.
And for some of you, this year brought delights you couldn’t have imagined a year ago. 2022 was your year you wanted to forget, and you’ve seen changes in relationships, in vocation, in where you live. This has been a year of an abundance of light, and it was finally your time to see it.
I’ve walked with my people through this as well, and let me tell you the adjacent light is almost as bright and warm as the light you live in. Thank you for letting me celebrate all that has happened for you.
I think many of us are in the middle. In the middle of witnessing heartbreak and chronic illness and circumstances that hang on for the people we love, and witnessing breakthrough and seemingly unending joy and the proof that things do change for others. And, in this middle space, we are in our own kind of middle experience. Things aren’t bad and they aren’t overwhelmingly good; they just are.
We live in a highlight reel era. Maybe we always have. Maybe all of human history was always about celebrating the really-really good in contrast to the really-really bad. But before, you had to wait to read the summary Christmas letter and now you see good news (and bad news) every day on Instagram.
When you’re surrounded by either good news or bad news, it’s easy to feel left out somehow.
Like your middle ground isn’t adequate.
There’s a reminder that the steady state is really unsustainable.
More than once this fall and winter, I lamented to a friend, “I may have exceeded my quota for other people’s good news.” When you’re surrounded by either good news or bad news, it’s easy to feel left out somehow. Like your middle ground isn’t adequate. There’s a reminder that the steady state is really unsustainable. I was truly happy for how quickly some circumstances had changed in a short period of time for people I love. And I felt the slowness of change for myself. “Look how much has changed for them in a year! Look how much has changed in just 3 months!” “Look how I’m still right where I was last year!”
(Good friends will listen to this quietly and won’t offer false promises that the same will happen for you, but will tell you with a glance or in handing you a tissue or even in their pause to answer, “I will hold that hope for you.”)
But I was flipping through journal entries the other night and found this from April 8:
I’m so grateful. So many things in this last year have changed, and it’s giving me renewed hope.
I was not expecting to see those exact words in my own handwriting.
In measuring from Holy Saturday 2022 to Holy Saturday 2023, I was able to see my own “so much has changed” - I found a new church community and local group of friends, who have delighted to know our mess. Quiet hopes that I’d set aside demanded my attention. I learned to ask for help and believe that I was important enough to other people to receive it. I remembered the purpose and passion God had placed in my heart, and started asking Him what He wants us to do together.
The trap I’d fallen into at the end of 2023 was thinking it’s the outcome that matters, what people can see. But there hadn’t been a change in any of my closely-held circumstances. No measurable outcome. No big news to announce on any social media platform. Just the quiet glow of hope, the warmth of expectation.
Hope doesn’t deliver results to us. Hope just holds our hands as we wait.
In a recent Advent sermon, my friend said this: “Hope knows that it is exhausting. But Hope also knows that it is beautiful, and so it doesn’t apologize.” And I realized that what I was experiencing here at the close of the year isn’t disappointment in my circumstances, or even in hope itself, but exhaustion. I’ve been waiting for hope to deliver, or apologize for the delay. But hope doesn’t deliver results to us. Hope just holds our hands as we wait.
All of this to say, I’ve put my messy in-between pity party to the side to celebrate some things that I’ve actually done this year, which may or may not have made their way onto social feeds:
Rediscovered my love of live theater - I attended FIVE plays this year!
Wrote out an outline for a book.
Read 17 books, with an initial goal of 10.
Traveled five times this year, including a family reunion and celebration for my grandparents’ 75th anniversary.
Became more vulnerable in my friendships, risked being too much, lost one along the way.
As I look back over the year, I see that I had an abundance of love to give to my people. I had opportunities to be the voice of encouragement, of reason, of truth, of hope. I was willing to look at some of my trauma-based patterns, and live like I believe that the people who love me will stay. And to prove to those facing some tough times in 2023 that I will stay with them. 2023 was a year when I put some actions behind my intentions.
I want 2024 to hold more of the same. More abundant, generous, exuberant love. More bravery to speak truth, more courage to be able to listen to it myself. More wisdom in seeking the opportunities that God has prepared for me, and saying “yes” when I see them. And above all, more patient endurance in hope.
Happy New Year, friends.