The new year: what have we learned from the past one?
As I process the life and death of this last year, I realize it held both, in big ways, and sometimes in quiet, barely noticeable ones.
The new year carries with it the idea of starting fresh. Something new. A hope that it will be better, different. Yet that hope can stem from what we have done with the year before. What did we learn? How did we love? Which relationships can endure time and circumstance? This is how the future becomes different, by slowing down to process and by being honest with the truth of our recent story.
I don’t think I am alone in saying there are years of our lives that are distinctly marked by suffering and pain of circumstances that feel out of our control and leave us asking God, why? This past year was one of those for me. As a continuation of challenges from the year before, I found myself in one of the lowest places I have ever experienced.
I began the year with a spotlight turned inward, asking God a hard question: What is it about me that is keeping me from living fulfilled in my relationships with others and in the peace I desire? I begged Him to reveal my blind spots. I had nothing to lose and very little hope.
Be careful what you ask for.
In His gentle and loving way, God revealed my coping mechanism I had relied on for so long, a false sense of ego rooted in confidence and ability, was, in fact, a lie. It had protected me, but it was not true. It needed to be exposed. It was the death of the self I thought I was.
Already confused and unsteady, I suddenly realized I had no foundation left except wholehearted surrender to God.
As painful as this has been, I am grateful for the truth. I am learning to find the real and true me by accepting both the good and the bad. Acceptance of what is true has been a central theme. I built a false self to survive a deeply neglected childhood and a lonely inner life that lasted 48 years. I started grieving for the hearts and relationships I missed because of how others experienced me. But I no longer needed just to survive.
Slowly, I moved from anger toward that false self into growing mercy and grace, the grace she deserves. I can now thank her for protecting me when I didn’t know another way. Along the way, I grieved the time lost and questioned how I was supposed to move forward.
In response to the deep groanings of my need to heal, groanings deciphered by God, I began story work with a counselor. Not intending to, but they were offered to me, I attended four spiritual retreats in the fall, and participated in a therapeutic intensive called Noble Workshops (incredible, and I highly recommend it). Each experience offered tools to begin refilling what had been depleted in my life with God. Each brought its own perspective on cultivating an intimate spiritual life that had been missing for a long time.
My joke as I enter the new year is that I am done “retreating.” But in truth, I am finally ready to reengage, differently, as I continue the work of relearning and discovering who I really am.
This is the death and life of the inner self. The death of old identities, old covenants, and old perspectives to the turning toward a new covenant life in Jesus, marked by truth, raw vulnerability, and a willingness to face what is hard to change with a loving God.
Turning toward the hard is a choice. It is choosing openness to wherever and however God is leading into deeper life with Him. I don’t want to be anywhere else.
Are you desiring a new truth? Where is He leading you?
