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| The highlights of 2017 |
I have been thinking about 2018. I don't usually set New Year's resolutions. My mind has been thinking (cause I can never get it to shut up) about the past few years and all the changes and that have occurred and challenges we have faced. I have been thinking about what is important to me and what God would have me do differently from this moment on.
I made a choice twelve years ago, in October 2005, to follow Jesus. It was a battle for me to do so. As this new year is upon me, I am looking back over the last year... the last several years, and I see how I have struggled. I see how this past year was so very hard. There is no other word to describe this last year. It drained me and caused me to be overwhelmed and feel alone. Anxiety issues began to consume me and I spent a lot of time crying and feeling very low about myself. I considered giving up on that choice I made all those years ago. I would have, if giving up Jesus would have brought me a moment of freedom. I would have walked away because I felt so alone.
My life has been built around Him. For twelve years, most of my choices have had Jesus as a part of them. The hours, for over eight years, praying for child to be safe, finally were answered after years of praying. Have I let the five years since that remarkable answer to years of prayers fade the impact of it? Have I forgotten all the times the Lord has brought my children from the brink of death? Have I forgotten the times I could only weep with the power of His presence? Have I forgotten the joy that came with serving, giving up of self, to give to others? Have I denied the pull on my heart that led me to homeschool my children for Him? Do not the very Words of the Lord flow through my mind and heart at times, Words I have studied and meditated on and prayed back to Him?
He isn't going to let me go without a fight. And, I don't want to fight Him. I want to be encompassed in Him. This past year has been one of the most challenging I have ever faced. I do not say that lightly. I say it with the grave, sober outlook that experienced times so hard that I was tempted to give up Jesus. Tension with family members, frustration at those that have changed their beliefs, hopelessness at seeing the foundation and support I thought I had in my life scatter like dust, helplessness as I watched children struggle with health and emotional issues. Surely God is the answer to all of these areas, but I have struggled to see Him when life overwhelmed. I felt myself growing angry at Him, because the struggles were too much and I felt so alone on this path.
Heather Margiotta, in a recent blog post, stated it this way, "If you choose to, you can find a million reasons to resent your life and be angry at God. Or, you can choose to find a million reasons to value your life enough to spend moments with God and allow Him into that dark space. He will turn that darkness into light and give you a thankful attitude."
As much as I didn't ask for many of the tough things that have happened this past year and even the last few years, God still fights to draw me in. I see all that I didn't sign up for, all that my children don't deserve, the struggles and battles that leave many feeling as if God isn't there, and I want to resort to anger. And yet I also know that many others have faced loss like I have not experienced. They face challenges that I do not face at this time. Some see their journey ending, and are looking at eternity, excited to be with the Lord, but sad to leave their loved ones. My tough times have me withdrawing, careful with my emotions, afraid to trust and be let down, afraid I'll be consumed in the anger that used to rule me.
Anger used to be my way to deal with life. Fight. Get angry. Anxiety would kick in, and I would get angry. I hated feeling that out-of-control, helpless, weak feeling. I never wanted to be the one that would rather check-out of life, leaving my loved ones feeling as if they weren't worth fighting and sticking around for. It's been done to me, and that feeling that you lack worth, that feeling of abandonment, is destroying of all value a person can feel about themselves. So, I would get angry and drive full-steam ahead. I hurt and alienated a lot of people in that anger, including my children. I wrote about that part of my journey in the hope that others would see that they aren't alone in battling anger. God didn't want me angry, and as I grew in Him, I felt Him leading me to a different way.
But the feelings that fueled the anger still develop in me, tempting me to give in to them. And there are times when I realize that God gave those feelings as a signal to fight against injustice, to fight for loved ones. They aren't always bad feelings. I have to lean on God and learn when to stand and when I am acting out of line with Him. When everything spiraled to a dark place this past year, I had to stand. And when I look at the choices I have made for years, and I see what I valued, what I felt was core to my life, fading away, I have had to learn a new way to fight.
The last few years have been challenging due to many things outside of our control. For me, the things that have made me weak and an emotional basket-case aren't the big things. Yes, those big things have taken a toll. How can they not? But the ways I would have dealt with those big things were stripped away, and the little things felt so much bigger. And suddenly the life I knew is different and I am floundering.
It began with the passion for the Lord in others around me disintegrating. The reasons don't really matter, for there is no one reason why people slowly fade away. Casting Crowns said it best in the song, Slow Fade, when they stated, "It's a slow fade when you give yourself away. It's a slow fade when black and white are turned to gray. And thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid when you give yourself away. People never crumble in a day. It's a slow fade."
I have spent years trying to keep my passion strong, but I absorb so many of the feelings around me that there is this constant battle to not take on those feelings when I am surrounded by them. When the passion for Jesus went out in others, and we went through a very hard time, decisions were made that changed everything. We went to a different church for awhile. My husband and I stopped doing ministry. We stopped discipling our children. We stopped putting the things of God as vital. I was unprepared for the apathy I encountered in those that had always been my support, that led me much more than I led them.
This left me trying to restore what was lost. It is so hard to watch that slow fade, to not even see it happening at first, and then to be taken by surprise. It's hard to describe to others the disillusionment that comes after walking through so much, and seeing those times take away the vital passion that used to exist in others. It is hard to describe just how deep the fear and frustration of watching loved ones choose a path that you know is not God's best for them. The "fixer" in me wants to make everything as it was, to right the wrongs. But I have learned that I can't fix this. I can't fix the hearts of others. My fear and frustration and despair over the past couple of years hasn't changed one heart. If anything, those things have pushed others away.
And, as I have learned over the past few years, I can't go back in time. I can't restore what was lost because I can't change the hearts of others. I can only pray for their hearts and keep going, one day at a time, hoping that, like in the past, God will work in His timing and in His way. This hasn't been an easy revelation to accept because it leaves me feeling powerless and heartbroken.
I miss the past. I miss that feeling of a shared mission. I see the trials of the past, and they should have overwhelmed me and caused me to be defeated. My husband and I endured so much during those years. We lost his father and then my grandmother. We went through unemployment. We had health issues that most families are blessed to never face. Those struggles were defeating at times, and yet we made it through. We endured, somehow. We endured because we had a duty, a ministry, that we didn't always feel like doing, but that had to be done anyway. We endured because we shared a belief that God would walk with us through the trials and triumphs, that He works all things for good, even if it didn't feel good at the time.
That time, when compared to now, seems like a different life. The result has been me trying to get something back. To me, my faith should be active, with tangible parts where I am working and serving. I don't believe those works will save me, because only Jesus saves. But in a real way they did sustain me. They kept me from the emptiness and loss that I fight now. They saved me from the feeling of utter loneliness that floods me when I must once again walk into a Wednesday night church service without the one who served in ministry with me by my side. It floods me when I see the pictures of the past and remember what used to be. The tough times seem much more challenging, for I feel as if I face them without that shared vision. The Lord said it Himself when He stated, "For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them." (Matthew 18:20) There is something to be said about having others share the mission and vision of Jesus sharing the journey with you, uplifting you when you are down, allowing you to uplift them when they need.
But then God reminds me of truth. He reminds me that what is real and true can never be taken. He reminds me that He doesn't leave me alone, even when it feels like it. He reminds me that He isn't done yet; not with me, not with loved ones, not with prayers that seem unanswered. He gives me a new perspective, and asks me to keep my focus where it should be. In the words of King Caspian in C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader, "I spent too long wanting what was taken from me and not what was given."
I have spent a long time focusing on what was, wanting what was taken from me, and not what was given. This quote comes to me often, reminding me to keep my perspective straight. His plan isn't finished even when my world has changed or everything seems upside down. It's tough to say that, to believe that, when children are fighting for health, when finances are crashing, when overwhelmed with life that seems out of control, when the frustration because life has changed comes my way. Having a tough time believing or saying that His plan isn't finished when my emotions just want to be done doesn't change the reality that Jesus still is working.
And we know that all things work together for the good to those who love God to those who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28
For 2018, I want fresh fire. I need to believe that God has a plan, even when that plan is difficult to see. I need to do what He asks of me, even when it is hard. Some days it is very hard. As I pray about direction for this new year, I feel Him drawing me back to Him, back to His heart. I feel Him asking me to pray in ways I have never prayed before. I am bombarded with such a sweet feeling of His presence, renewing me to battle for my loved ones in His way, not in the anger and frustration that have pervaded my heart lately.
My oldest daughter made a comment recently, an observation, that I have thought about often over the last few weeks. "Mom," she said, "Our family serves God, but we don't seem to have much victory."
Victory...
Not my victory, but God's victory.
He is speaking in ways I haven't heard for a long time. Perhaps this elusive victory is not about achievement, or making things a certain way. Perhaps this victory is about making the most of what God has given, even though it is different from what was and what I had expected. Perhaps this victory in this coming year will be in drawing closer to Him and enjoying the blessings I have, not wishing and wanting for what was. Maybe the victory will come in what He has planned, in a future that I can't see at the moment. Maybe the future will be more challenging than I know, but God will still meet me there.
As the new year comes, I am listening to God. I am listening to His direction. I am listening and surrendering. I am forgiving others for changing. I am letting God have control of them. This is a daily process. And I find my journey beginning again, with God filling me and keeping me. He truly is the treasure, the pearl of great price, everything.
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