End of Year Reflection

December is my favorite month of the year. Most people assume that's because it contains my birthday (true) and that I'm self-absorbed and greedy (also true), but it's also because, at the end of the year and beginning of a new one, we find time for introspection and assessment--at least we should, if we're not too busy celebrating. 

Trees

Carving out space for contemplation can be a challenge, though, at this time of year and easily pushed to the side if I'm not careful. This month included two sets of house guests, a cross country trip, wrapping up a semester of school, and all the excitement of birthdays and Christmas and anniversaries and a new year. If I'm not careful, the time slips away before I know it, and it's mid-January and I have no idea how the last year really went (not the cliches of a 2020 dumpster fire, but the real struggle and progress) and no idea what I hope for from the next.

Yesterday I read this quick thought from Piper about thinking through what we want to accomplish in a day before we roll out of bed in the morning and not being leaves blowing aimlessly in the wind without really going anywhere. It reminded me of how I ask my weekly Bible study kids to set their intention for the week before we sign off on Zoom. I set mine too and write it down in my journal and try not to forget about it over the next six days. 

Some weeks I forget about it.

Our last meeting before Christmas, I actually told the kids what my intention was because it was an area where I needed prayer. Guess what I haven't forgotten about since then? That's right. The intention. And even though I can't quite say I've gotten a check mark in that area, it has been worked on and struggled with since that afternoon meeting.

It's made me wonder how much power there was just in telling someone.

Sun

So here's my challenge for you as the year draws to a close: talk about it. Sit down with someone you trust and love (or a handful of someones) and share what went well this year, what good books you read, where you really failed, what hard things you tackled... then leave space to talk about what you'd like to continue or tweak or do completely differently in the coming year. 

I'm not saying make a resolution. I am saying come up with an idea of what direction you want to head.

As a military spouse, I get to pick up and start over again every time we move. Things that weren't working are a lot easier to leave behind when you are physically in a different place. New habits that I may want to pick up are easier to build in when you're restarting your life from the ground up. Not all of us have this opportunity. But we all have the hard stop of the old year ending to act as a catalyst. Let's not waste this opportunity.

While we are still gathered with family or tucked away at home in the quiet space of winter, now that the Christmas preparation and partying is done, let's take the time to think through what has come before and what will come next--and verbalize our thoughts on what we see in hindsight and foresight. Let's do this not only for ourselves but also for someone else who may need to speak their own hopes into the void and hear them echo back into their ears.

As we end the Christmas season where we ponder the miracle of Emmanuel, God with us, may we take the time to be with ourselves and with others, allowing for the margin that we really need to think and grow and breathe and progress forward into the new space of the year ahead.

Mountain

{Helpful photo captions provided by The Man who thought I wouldn't notice. I noticed.}

Provision in the Unpredictable

It's my twenty thousandth time reading the Christmas story (give or take a few), but this year it becomes about control...and provision.

This year I see Mary and Joseph, told where to go and what to do, unable to provide the basic things we things we need (shelter, medical care, community), forced to leave their home and travel elsewhere because a king in a foreign land decided it was so. They have no power, no say, no control.

We resonate with that this year. We have been told not to leave our homes, not to meet in our churches, not to go anywhere without a mask on. Some of us have lost our jobs, our homes, our health, our friends and family. We feel like our control has been wrenched from our hands and given to the powers-that-be in Washington, and we have no other choice but to comply.

Then I see God's provision, not the provision that Mary and Joseph might have wanted (the census cancelled so they could stay home, perhaps, or even a room at the inn, which seems little enough to ask), but the provision that they were given--a stable with animals in which the Lamb of God was to be born. This was a provision that was just enough (though at the time it might've seemed far less than enough), and prepared the way for the greatest provision of all--a sacrifice that could take away the sins of the world, a provision far more than we deserve.

I wonder: what are the ways that God has provided for us this year, ways that are just enough (though perhaps they seem far less than enough at the time), provisions that years from now may point the way back to Christ, to grace, to wholeness, though we don't realize that now? 

For me, in a year with less control than usual, perhaps, He provided a long distance Zoom Bible study for my ten year old; He provided neighbors willing to welcome us into a new neighborhood; He provided a church and a homeschool community willing to take creative measures to keep meeting in person; He provided a yard where my children can play outdoors; He provided plane tickets and clean bills of health and masks so that we could fly to see my in-law's for Christmas (even with my husband's Achilles tendon partially torn). He provided a library with curbside pickup and groceries delivered to the trunk of my car and flexible children ready to roll with the punches.  

As I count the provisions, they begin to snowball, letting me see one after another after another, opening my eyes to God's goodness even as I acknowledge that I am not the one running the show...and neither is COVID-19. God prepared every detail of his son's coming, down to Caesar Augustus demanding a census so that a prophecy given 600 years before could be fulfilled with Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, a birth with the least of these for whom he came to die, a birth befitting a perfect sacrifice.

And as I count the provisions, I hear my heart quietly remembering: all this and Christ too. I may not have control of much, but I do have all this...and Christ too. And as I sit beside my husband, our youngest daughter cuddled between us and the lights of the Christmas tree mingling with firelight and the glow of computer screens as we work, I think to myself: that's worth celebrating. 

Christ's provision may not look as we imagine, but it always turns out to be just enough, enough to help us see God more fully, enough to bring joy (if we look for it), enough to be worth treasuring up in our hearts.