Hope for the New Year
I love Christmas! I love pretty much everything about it - cutting down the Tree, the lights, decorations, shopping for presents, our family traditions, Christmas Eve candlelight service. Most importantly and foremost, remembering Jesus and celebrating His birth, the birthday that changed all of history.
Something about the season breathes peace, joy and hope into the depths of my soul. This year was especially wonderful for me as it is the ending of an amazing year for me and our family. We celebrated 25 years of marriage in February and took a trip to New Orleans with our boys to commemorate that milestone. Our 3 boys are thriving and following Jesus while still living under our roof and allowing us tto speak wisdom into their lives.
So I get that it might sound easy to many of you for me to feel peace, joy and hope in this season of my life. But, as also happens at this time of year, with New Year’s just around the corner, I find myself reflecting not only on this year but on past ones as well. And as amazing as this year has been, I have also been remembering just 3 years ago, Christmas 2016.
Most of 2016 was not peaceful, joyful or full of hope for us, or for me in particular. It was a hard year. We faced tough decisions and difficult circumstances. Everything was in a state of flux as for months of 2016, my husband faced a belligerent boss who was bent on hurting him. It was a hard place to be as I watched Mike drag himself to a job he was beginning to despise with the uncertainty, every day, of whether he’d still be employed by days end. It was hard living in limbo for months on end as Mike went on interview after interview all over the country. But through this all we were thankful that after 3 years of looking we had finally found a church home. We lived in a place we loved, had good friends, were settled, feeling like we were home for the first time since moving to Michigan 5 years before. So facing that we might have to move and leave what had taken so long to find was hard. So, as 2016 ended, we knew that 2017 would most likely bring a move and some hard changes. We trusted God but we were discouraged, frustrated and quite honestly, angry that God was potentially asking us (ME) to leave a place where we were so content. This starts to take a toll on every aspect of life. Some days were harder than others as we tried to hold on and wait until God provided a way out of difficult circumstances.
Maybe you can relate and that is where you find yourself as 2019 ends. I hurt with you friend. It’s hard to be joyful, even at Christmas, when your heart aches with unfulfilled longings, difficult circumstances and uncertainty. So how do we change despair, heartache and hurt into hope for the New Year?
First of all, if you’re not already, connect (or reconnect) to Jesus - He is peace and joy and hope when circumstances are hard and bleak. Hold onto Him in the waiting.God has promised us in His word that He will never leave us or forsake us.
Also, connect to others. Satan knows that if he can get us isolated, he can infuse despair into our souls. Find a church or, if you have one, join a small group. There is nothing like the gathering together with other believers and sharing life together, the joys and the sorrows. Knowing you belong, they are your people and no matter what, they’ve got your back.
And for those of you like me who like to see how a story ends, our story didn’t end in despair.
We did move in 2017 and it was hard. It took another 2 years for us to feel settled and find a new church home. I think that’s part of why this year has been such an amazing one for me. I saw the rainbow after the storm. This is the year that God’s plan from 2016 has started to come together for me to see. All the pieces that, much like a puzzle, had to fit into the exact right place so that the picture starts to emerge. So hold on sisters. God’s got this. His plan is always best even when it’s hard. And joy and hope do come in the morning.