Now Comes the New Year

Can I be totally honest and say I find the new year more stressful than refreshing?

I do see it – that beauty in the newness and the starting over and the anticipation of what the year might bring.

But there’s this other side of me – the human side, I think – that keeps working its way to the top of my thoughts.

And I find that more than anything, I fear it. I fear the unknown of a new year.

I fear that it won’t be good. I fear the ordinary. I fear the struggle, the striving that must come in the daily as I do my best to manage this life God has given me. I fear the trials and the failures. I fear the changes that must come as time passes, and I fear that they’ll come too soon. I fear my babies growing another year older and my marriage settling another year deeper and my imperfect self facing the winds of yet another year.

And I gasp as I try to breathe in because suddenly it hurts, this air of the new year. It’s suddenly too much to handle, and I begin to panic, and the air closes in around me and my feet begin to slip and I try to grasp behind me at something that is solid and sure.

But all I find is passing time.

And it suddenly feels empty and meaningless.

And that scares me more than anything. Because in the core of my being I believe life is designed to be meaningful. Life is filled with purpose and loveliness and goodness and wholeness. I know it is.

But I have forgotten, standing here at the door to this new year.

I have forgotten to remember.

To know.

To declare that God is amazing and faithful and trustworthy and kind. To remember that He has been good to me, and He has loved me fiercely in all the details of my days lived so far.

And so I take myself once again on the journey of remembering. I revisit blessing after blessing. The providing and the miracles and the delightful surprises and the undeserved graces and the unexpected strengths. The failures-turned-successes and the hard-roads-turned-passable and the can’t-make-it-days-turned-sighs-of-relief.

And I find, as I remember and acknowledge and know, that my footing grows solid. The ground has again grown firm and I am standing no longer in fear but now strengthened by the knowledge that all will be well.

Because I have found that in 2016, God is still who He says He is. Who He has always been. And who He will continue to be.