This new year is one that some were predicting would never come. December 21st came and went, much to the surprise and dismay of some doom's day-ers, as any other day. The world did not end in 2012.
This is a year that many, especially those in Newtown, Connecticut, probably can't even focus on because of trying just to endure the moments at hand. Oh how I grieve their loss and their suffering with them. Not a day has passed that I haven't thought of them. Yet I know all too well, my thoughts and grief cannot even begin to compare to what they are dealing with. Not just loss, but horrific, senseless, avoidable loss. All I know to do is cry out DEAR LORD! God has to do the rest. We are truly helpless. They are truly helpless. DEAR, DEAR LORD!
This new year, though much is left unknown of what will occur, is sure to bring joy and sorrow, hope, and sadly, more tragedy because of this broken world. Yes, 2013 is absolutely here and as I watched the faces and joys of those kids I love so much celebrate last night, reflection ran deep in my soul.
Finally.. FINALLY.. after some intense time of refrain... kind of a writer's block... finally it was time to write again. I felt it calling me last night for the first time in a couple of months. The wheels have turned sometimes at a rapid pace in my heart and head. The movement in my spirit strong, but I haven't been able to sit for long at all and make anything outflow in this blog that had any sort of rhyme or reason. Every attempt has been sort of choppy and all over the place, therefore deleted within just a short while of starting.
I haven't been surprised. Many write often in their blogs or their pages. They have this daily flow of things they write about and it is most always a good read. But God and I have the unique thing going. He is so in charge of my writing that if I try to write when He is wanting me to listen, I literally can't get anything going. I can write a letter for work or an email to express concern for an issue, but no matter how badly I want to write in this particular arena, if I don't have God's blessing, I am frozen.
It's a good thing I do this for therapy and not for the hope of becoming famous. I would crash and burn so fast because I cannot keep up with the pace of the blogger world of those seeking to become known. I literally write for my own therapy and growth, with the prayer that somehow what He works out and speaks to me about will be used to touch someone else that He leads to read. I am thankful to realize I can't be in charge of this or I might flat go crazy trying to write when I am supposed to wait.
So if you wonder why sometimes I am writing a billion blogs a week and sometimes I am not heard from for weeks, it's God's doing. He is the boss of this. And I am thankful. :) But I do miss it when I am held back for a season, so it is always a welcomed relief when I sense Him saying it's time to hit it again.
Last night I heard Him whisper, it's time to write again. Thank you, Lord! It took everything in me not to begin at 2:00 in the morning. Somehow though, I knew I needed to wait. I needed to really let His whispers resonate. So here I sit, some 14 hours later, and the keys are smoking! Oh thank you, Lord, for permission to write. Flow through these fingers, as you speak deep into my heart!
So, 2012 is gone. This is truth around the globe. The calendar has changed. The months have been lived out until the last second slipped away last night at the stroke of the midnight clock, ushering in the new beginnings of 2013. It's crazy to write that. 2013. I remember the song, "Party like it's 1999." and thinking that seemed crazy! (Sidenote: I am STILL YOUNG! I didn't say I was in High School when I heard that song. Maybe I remember that song from when I was like 5 or something. Or maybe I just know it from the oldies station. It certainly wasn't when I was in my early high school years. Because. I. Am. Young. Just needed that clarified. This is a public site after all!) But here we are, well past 1999, Time has led us to the calendar year of 2013 After Death. 2012 has passed on. It is ended. Finished. Final.
But do we really get to walk away from what it bred? Is there really something that magical about today over yesterday?
Some may write me off right now. They may say "Debbie Downer" is in the house. Please don't. Hear me out! I feel like, after the deepest prayers and struggles through the months of this past year, God is whispering to me. I want to share it with you. Maybe, between the mix of us, His whispers will grow into shouts unto a hurting world of people so lost and hopeless that a whisper is missed!
I woke this morning with the same struggles I had last :
- My adopted daughter remains in her personal crisis, refusing to embrace who God means her to be, and instead racing back to the roots from which she came that still hold her captive... now of her own choosing. 2013 didn't erase that. For now, we have lost her. She is old enough to choose disaster and we can do nothing but pray.
- My husband still battles his health from MRSA. He remains tired and sometimes very weak. Some new issues have arisen in tests and we return to where we began in this battle... prayer alone.
- My heart aches for the world and the evil so evident. My home, my neighborhood, my city, my country, my world... all affected. Prayer alone remains the key. That did not change with the chime of the clock announcing the new year.
But, I also awoke this morning with the same blessings:
- My youngest daughter has given her life to Christ last August and on Christmas Eve, she shared with the world through Baptism, that she loves Jesus with her whole heart! She has always been our ray of sunshine and now her light radiates even more beauty!
- My firstborn son, now 3rd in line after we adopted, lives his life as an open book with me and his dad... even as a sophomore! He includes us in his decisions, even in praying for whether he was ready to have his first girlfriend. He is an "old soul" that gives us deep hope in the generation of teens today. That begin before 2012 and will continue now that it is 2013.
- My oldest son is leaving on the 15th for boot camp. He has grown into a young man who values the things we prayed he would. He has defeated his birth roots and embraced the path God gave him when he planted him into mine, my husband's and my then 20 month old son... and eventually my last born. He is family with us finally, as we have always been to him. He has battled hard in his emotional scars from his pre-adoption, but he is winning. This year more than any other, we have witnessed the victory. 2013 isn't the change. It's just the next step in the process.
- A friend's battle with cancer that nearly took her life, is now walking closer to victory. The change is not our time, but God's time and it has nothing to do with the calendar.
- My husband, my children, my parents, my job, my precious students, old friends, new friends, prayer partners, my animals, a warm and cozy home, praise music, good food, laughter, tears, sorrow, joy, the Word, and the hope that beats from my inside out.... 2012 or 2013.... the blessings flow through. The blessings are immeasurable.
Yes, a New Year was rang in last night and today is the first day of the rest of that year. It is a gift and an opportunity to live out our lives in a way that is better than the year before... but not because it is magical that the calendar changed, but because God has granted us the gift of another day, another year's beginning, so that He can continue the timeless plan of His redemption in our lives.
Hope. That is what today is, that is what yesterday was when we awoke, and that is what tomorrow will bring, all because we serve a risen Savior!
For every moment we are granted, be it calendar year 1999, 2012, or now 2013, today is the hope living through the promise granted us until we are united with the Holy One for eternity.
I don't know what you are trying to leave behind or what resolutions you are trying to embrace today. I don't know whether you smile when you look back over your memories, or if, like me it is a thick mix of joys and sorrows swirled into a rainbow of sometimes pure confusion. Whatever your view looking back, the gift lies in the fact that today has been granted and God was here before we arrived! Do you hear that? It is the key to His whispers. His constant tugging at my heart through our ongoing joys and sorrows. ROBIN.... I WAS HERE BEFORE YOU ARRIVED!
2013 so far has not fixed my sadness. I still ache for my little boy gone home too soon. I still grieve what was meant to be for my adopted daughter as she chooses that long, painful, path over the blessed one. I still feel violently ill when I find myself on my knees for Newtown, Connecticut. I.... I.... I..... the list is vast.
But 2013 has not stolen my joy either. My hope was here when I lifted my sleepy head off my pillow this morning to embrace the new day. I smiled at the sounds of my youngest playing as if she had ten friends over, though she was upstairs all alone in her fun make-believe world of play. I smiled at the empty side of the bed where my husband had risen and quietly slipped out to work and allowed me to sleep, though he was exhausted himself. The joys of my life are vibrant and still overcome all the sadness... if I keep them in my view more than the other.
2013 didn't erase the dishes from the night before or do the laundry. 2013 didn't make me as skinny as I once was or erase the age that is creeping into my hands and face as time goes on. 2013 didn't do anything special. It didn't, hasn't, and won't.
But God, who was here before we arrived, has already planned out the solutions to our problems, the medicine for our healing, the joy for our tears, the hope for our hopelessness. And that, my dear friends, is the whisper that simply must grow into a shout unto our hurting world.
The political fights, the blame game, the excuses... all are a camouflage of the truth. WE NEED GOD. We need Him in every second of our lives. And we need to know... to know... HE WAS HERE BEFORE WE ARRIVED!
My prayer... to live in that reality.... and that you can too. It wont be easy because the snake is always hovering in desperation trying to stop the full explosion of glory that WILL come when we live like that... we have to fight him... recognize him... and shun him out in Jesus name. We have to battle. But even that battle we must approach every time in the reality... GOD WAS HERE BEFORE WE ARRIVED!
That is my motto. It is what God whispered to me last night. May today, that whisper build into our shouts!
Bless you! Truly I do wish you a Happy New Year! But even more, I wish you a happy every single day of your life granted by God!
Peace to you....
Robin
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