The Lessons of 2022

 New Year's Day is only a few days away and I'm not making any resolutions. My prior experience has taught me I rarely keep them for more than a month. Honestly, I have only made them because there is an unwritten rule in our society that we need to promise ourselves we will set goals for the coming year. A lot of folks do, but like me, they rarely keep up with whatever expectations they have placed on themselves, which leads to a degree of self-shaming, or worse leads to continued unhealthy behaviors that can get worse than they were before swearing off them. 

I prefer to look back and see what I've learned in the past year. I may take those lessons to heart and by grace live by them in the coming year. One lesson I've learned this past year: I set myself up for failure when I place unrealistic expectations on myself. It's taken a long time to learn that lesson. For example, I was published in a prestigious journal this past year, and immediately I felt the bar of writing well raised exponentially. I was placing an expectation on myself to write beyond my current capabilities. What was published was written in a flash from pure inspiration. It's impossible to write at that level all the time. Writing is actually grunt work most of the time. Writing to learn to write better is what all authors do. It may be a while before I write something that good again. But I shall continue to write. No writing is ever wasted.

Another lesson I've learned this past year is one I should have learned by now. But like a gymnast, I may have finally stuck it: God answers prayer according to his timetable, not mine. It was very late in 2022 and it's an ongoing process, but a boatload of prayer has gone up to the presence of God like incense. Mine mingled with many others on behalf of a dying friend. Amazingly, she is slowly in tiny steps beginning to communicate by blinking her eyes. It is nothing short of a miracle. But I felt God wasn't answering prayers, or maybe saying no. She's not out of the woods. It could come to a crashing halt and she still pass away. But prayer is answered on God's terms. I now pray for his merciful best because as much as I would like to think I know best, I haven't the wisdom. 

Trusting God to protect the people I love has been a lesson in 2022. I would like to say I've got it down pat, but that would be a questionable statement. So I will say God has protected people I love dearly this past year in spite of the true danger surrounding them. I want to trust he will do so in the coming year. Paul was stoned, whipped, and imprisoned, yet God protected him from death until his race was complete. Struck down, at times perplexed, facing the answer of "No" to some prayers, yet trusting his Savior to keep him safe to do what he was anointed to do. I must do the same, having seen God's protective providence in action. 

Finally, I've learned I must be at peace about things I have no control over. Health concerns and financial difficulties, to name a couple. There are more I won't go into, but I'm called to be at peace knowing things may not improve and in fact, some will get worse and I'm powerless to stop it. God has called me to bear a burden that only he can enable me to bear. And in the midst of it, I am to be at peace. A peace that passes all understanding. 

So here's to 2023. May all God's children find joy, peace, and grace to enable them to overcome the world. Jesus will return and as he asked, will he find faith? 

I want to raise my hand and say here I am, I have faith. 

The Pain of Letting Go

I sit in the early morning hours. It’s still dark out and my light is that of a candle. I think of how it was before electricity, though I am typing by the glow of the laptop screen, running on battery power. Two hundred years ago I’d be writing on coarse paper with the stub of a pencil.

My thoughts are unformed as of yet. More coffee. I want to write an essay about a lovely friend I’ll probably never see in this lifetime other than through video phone calls. And those may be over. She is dying over a thousand miles away. She cannot read my texts, or hear me, well maybe she can. I don’t know. Her mother put her phone to her ear to listen to me, but she didn’t respond.

To say I am sad is an understatement. I’m grieving her and she isn’t even dead yet. But the prognosis is poor. Every day I expect to read she has gone home.  But she is lingering, and I think it’s because her mother won’t let her go. Yes, I have prayed hard for a miracle, but lately I have chosen to pray for God’s merciful best for her. And as I type this I am crying because letting go means losing a part of your heart, and the pain, oh the pain.

This time of year, Christmas, brings its own set of sorrows. My mother died two weeks before Christmas a few years back. I had to let her go because she was lingering in pain. I whispered in her ear it was okay to let go. She spoke and weakly said thank you. The next day she didn’t wake up, just laid there unconscious. She was still breathing when I went to get another cup of coffee. A few minutes later when I returned to her bedside, she was gone. 

My father had died near the holidays about eight years earlier. This just compounded the pain. I remember thinking I am an orphan now. No one to give me advice or the love only parents can give.

My heart broke with the pain only death produces. It is a unique sorrow. And I feel it now. It’s hidden grief I carry for them, even though I know they are supremely joyous and young again, pain-free, no sorrows. I remember my mother’s pain each time a friend died.  She was feeling more alone and very old. When her best friend died, she was inconsolable for a while. They had coffee together every morning for many years.

My friend and I have texted daily for years. The texts have stopped. She is unable to communicate, and I wonder if she is in pain, fear, or panic. My tears are for her as well as for me. I may lose a person I had daily contact with, just like my mother. And I don’t have my mother to tell me how long it hurt. How she got through it. Because friends are different than family. You tell them things you could never tell your family, as much as you love them. You play together, laugh together, cry together, share burdens together. It’s a bond completely different than that of a beloved spouse.

This morning I cry. I cry for my parents. I cry for the state of my friend who told me she just wants to go home. She has suffered her whole life and is so very weary of the continual pain. I get it. And I’m letting go. But dear God in heaven, this hurts. Christmas hurts. Yet I remember the words of David, Thou art always with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Please send your comfort.