Renewal
Happy New Year everyone! I know for all of us 2020 was, mildly put, a challenge, and it seems that 2021 is off to a rough start too. The truth is that I come into today and writing this post with a tired heart. I, like everyone else have spent the last few days tracking the news and chaos of it all. And, for today, I just want to look away. Not as a way of ignoring, dismissing, pretending nothing happened, but to take a moment of rest, to align my eyes and heart to the truth, and to put myself in the best place possible to address where our world is. I also know that even the ability to look away is a privilege. Instead of looking away, I am choosing to look to Jesus because I want to see where He is, how He is bringing good from evil, and how I can join in that.
Most years, at the start of the year, I try to take some time and journal. It is my way of processing the year and trying to not loose the good that may have been in a year because I have deemed it “bad.” For instance, it would be so very easy for all of us to deem 2020 as bad. None of us escaped last year without a loss. Even if your job, health, kids, home, family, and finances did well, we are all traumatized by the experiences. I have seen the trauma in my clients, and I have seen it in myself. Going in to 2020, I was so hopeful. I was hopeful for a fresh start. For me and my family, the six months leading up to 2020 were pretty horrible. My father died unexpectedly and suddenly and with that came the shaking that all families experience when a loved one is lost. I found out that there was a high chance that I would be losing my office that I practice at. Mix that with multiple colds and my childhood dog dying a few days before Christmas, the honest truth was that I was not in a good place. As 2020 started, I was listening. I was listening for God to give me a word over the year, in a way, His promise to me. The word that He gave me was renewal. To my heart in early January, that word sounded blissful. Renewal, wow did I long for it and need it. As 2020 unfolded, renewal seemed to be the last thing that I got. Before the tornadoes ripped my town apart and we all went into some form of lockdown, I was grappling with more losses in the forms of a torn hip muscle, my mom’s friend dying, my own counselor dying, and battling what I am now sure was COVID.
But, over the last year, regardless of how insane the world got, I have felt my heart changing. I felt it start breathing again. I started to feel my passions light again. When I looked back over my year, I realized that, even in the face of darkness, God was weaving renewal through my life. Even though lockdown caused my business to tank, I had the time my body, brain, and heart were desperately needing to recover and heal. That also applied for when I got COVID a second time in October. I also noticed as I looked back through the year small ways that God had shown up every single day. Sometimes, it was simple and small, like a new Dahlia blooming in my garden. Sometimes, it was a hidden benefit that came from new restrictions about going out. And, sometimes it was big and beautiful like seeing friends for the first time in months. Through it all, God was there, and He remained faithful to His promise to me of renewal.
Several years ago, God put this site and what I hope will be its ministry on my heart. For several years, I have held it, hoped for it, and tried to launch it more times than I can count. Now, it is here, another fulfilled promise. I am not trying to say that the world is all good right now, because it is not. There is much brokenness, hurt, and pain, but I do believe there is redemption and renewal to be found or brought. God is doing, will do a good thing.
