A New Year: Why Do The Tears Burn Hot?

This year I have joined a weekly subscription for a writing community called Rhythm and this is a response to this week's prompt: "Last year was nothing like we expected, and while the New Year usually prompts dreams and visions for what is possible, let’s look back first: how have you changed in the last year? How is the woman beginning 2021 different than the woman who began 2020? What’s been stripped and what has been added to your life?"

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I feel tired to my bones this January. My eyelids are heavy. My willingness to jump into things feels almost nonexistent. This year - this new year - I want to slow. I want to simplify. I want to clarify. I want more meaning.

As the tears burn hot in my eyes I admit to myself once more that yes, this is just another year - another time where I’m walking into the next twelve months with the heartache and emptiness of the last five years. The grief is always shifting but always present.

But this year I’m still tired… and goals? Sure - sometime in my life I’ll make goals. (Maybe I’m just not a goals person?)

I have done a lot of personal growing this year. Stretching. Leaning into the hard things. Having the hard conversations. Healing. Being honest about me. About who I am and about who God is. Taking large steps of faith and doing the things I never thought I’d do and being really scared while doing them. Putting myself out there and pulling myself back.

Why do the tears burn hot in my eyes again?!

The woman who began 2020 was wrestling, but didn’t have the tools to bring it to the outside. The woman beginning 2021 has gotten more practice with those tools but she’s still wrestling.

I feel a need to present a moment of arrival but reality says I am still in many ways hurting and messy now like I was then - I think I’m just able to deal with the mess and hurt differently… better…  now.

And again - the tears.

Goals feel hard because sometimes goals don’t happen.
Reflecting feels hard because sometimes what we’re reflecting on is heavy.
Looking ahead feels hard because nothing is guaranteed.
New Year’s feels hard because sometimes it is hard to move into a new year.

But admittedly, I have grown more significantly into who I am and who God created me to be this year. I am more tired and yet also more alive. I’m more aware and more burdened, more empowered and more secure. I am still me, but also more of me than I once was.

I’ve had years that unsettled me way more than this last one. I’ve had years that shifted me at my core in ways that I would never had asked for. This last year may have been a hard one on a macro level, but personally, it also was a powerfully good one - one full of trajectory, change, transformation, and growth.

I think I’ll long wonder if I would be where I am in life in a personal, emotional, spiritual, and physical sense if 2020 had never happened just like it did. And yet, I don’t know that it would have mattered. God used what was going on in the world and all of its aftermaths to impact me directly, personally, and intimately, so that I might see him more clearly. 

I think that’s why the tears burn hot.

He’s bigger to me in 2021. He’s more gracious than I realized. He’s more just than I understand. He’s more sovereign than I admitted and more mysterious to me as his student and child. His gospel draws me in differently and his Word remains foundational to me. He is God, on the throne, continually being repositioned into its proper place in my life. 

I am not necessarily different, but I’m more of who I am because of how God called me out of the depths during the pain and heartache of 2020 and helped me to see glimpses of true hope and restoration. This is redemption in my story.

Stripped bare. Added on. It’s all been part of it for me this year. Amen.

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Not my answer to the prompt but for the sake of reflecting on what this year has held for me -

• I continued to alter my diet for the majority of this year - Jan-Oct - in order to continue to nurse W through his allergies (no dairy for me + no soy, eggs, or nuts for him).
• We celebrated Jacob's 4th birthday by going to the Science Museum.
• I got to see my grandparents and they got to meet W & see E again for the second time. That was the best surprised and I still feel weepy from it.
• We drove our family to Florida for a life-giving spring break trip with our students.
• We drove home from Florida on John-Mark's birthday to a shut down world.
• E suddenly stopped going to preschool, which took a long time for her to adjust to.
• At first the break caused by the shut down was a breath of fresh air for our family. Our lifestyle (a baby taking two naps + a toddler) didn't change much. I felt oddly comforted and seen as an already-mostly-at-home mom. We missed playgrounds, play dates, Target trips, taking them with me to run errands, and going to church in person.
• I took a seminary-level course (Old Testament Survey by Dr. Mark Futato - excellent) and really disliked/was stretched by how hard it was and also loved what I learned in the lectures. I loved God more after that class. (And decided not to further my education until after my kids were in elementary school, which was actually helpful! Ha!)
• John-Mark took three seminary-level courses and completed his training through our Institute of Biblical Studies.
• I started reading through the whole Bible in a year in January, got side-tracked by the sudden change in schedule because of the pandemic, and consistently read through most of the Old Testament, part of the New Testament, and a lot of psalms all year long.
• I learned and wrote my way consistently with the help of Hope*Writers, specifically through my conversation and hope*circle primarily with my friend Laurie.
• I was in counseling and worked through hard things, including postpartum depression, grief, personal and professional wrestlings, and more - consistently all year.
• My friend Lauren and I began a Friday morning prayer group where we meet at 6 am with friends from all over the country to pray for an hour - no real agenda or plan usually. Just praying. It's been a highlight of my weeks.
• I prayed through and ended up following through with a completely unexpected and big step of faith away from a full-time position within an organization I still absolutely love where I had been heavily involved for five years as a student and then on staff full-time for almost ten years. I followed God and trusted him with my next steps and in faith - and it was scary, hard, sad, exhilarating, and absolutely the next right step for me in obedience.
• We grieved and feared for many things as the racial climate was stirred up again on a grand scheme, and yet we also rejoiced in how others began to understand more deeply (including ourselves) what life is like for Black and brown Americans still today. It has been devastating and also hopeful at times.
• We spent a week at the beach with my side of the family and it was refreshingly normal.
• I saw John-Mark grow and be used in more ways than I can count this year as he's led even through his own pain and fears to help others in our communities cross cultures and love each other - and reach others - better. I'm so proud of him.
• We learned to Zoom through major life events and appreciated the time we had with out of town family even more.
• I once again remembered the gift of waking up super early to do a lot of things. We settled into a rhythm multiple times as our life kept transitioning.
• We unexpectedly got pre-approved for a loan, looked, and bought a house! We moved out of a house that had been God's gracious provision for five years.
• I learned, created, interviewed, edited, produced, and launched a podcast... and I'm really proud of the season.
• I was intense therapy for eight weeks called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and worked through the trauma and grief of Jacob's diagnosis, death, and our miscarriage. That was so hard. It was so powerful. God showed up and my eyes fill with tears when I think back on it.
• I did a lot of new things with The Morning and even was part of my first-ever live Q&A during our first ever virtual conference, I was interviewed a few times for the podcast, and I continued to fight to see hope and joy even through my own grief.
• For the first time in 3.5 years, I was not pregnant and/or breastfeeding.
• My baby turned one and a few months later my toddler turned three.
• We have been knowingly exposed to COVID once, quarantined or self-isolated many times, and thankfully, no one in our immediate families has gotten sick yet.
• I was the matron of honor in my best friend/cousin's beautiful backyard wedding.
• Our marriage was stretched and pulled and we fought for each other. We also came together on certain boundaries and decisions we needed to make this year.
• I went on many walks, got more creative with my kids, settled into my role as their mom, was stretched in my role as their mom, broke down many days in the bathroom, looked them in the eye and said sorry, got more hugs and kisses than I could count, and wondered at the little people they are becoming.

Note: Okay, I'll admit. I didn't want to reflect on this year. But now that I have it written down I can see a glimpse of its fullness. It's beautiful. What a year. Thank you, Jesus.