Goodbye to All That

I’ve been dancing around how to even begin writing a recap of 2018 — It’s been a long while since I’ve scribbled anything even remotely close to a personal essay, and I’m afraid I’ve forgotten how to tune in to that voice — so I decided to start like I usually start any other story: writing a proper hed and dek. For those of you that don’t know the jargon, it means a headline and a subhead. I decided on, “But Why?: A Study On Patience and Providence.” Its proximity to any prize Jane Austen novel isn’t lost on me, but it strikes me that lately, when I think back on this year, all I see and hear is a quiet little scuffle — that never did happen in the physical realm, lest in my head and my heart. Right now I struggle to remember what it was all about, but isn’t that how it always goes?

In lieu of a backstory, I’ll say this: One of my best friends once told me that I’ve always been the biggest enemy of my thoughts. She wasn’t wrong. I’ve always been the kind of woman who goes back to the why of the thing, even when it involves something as basic as evaluating why I like a certain flavored ice cream, or why I feel a certain way about someone. It’s never been enough to just adopt the thought process, the liking or the place. Yet, I can have long, profound conversations about “I feel X about Y because Z,” and still somehow manage to be my own devil’s advocate who scrambles it back up.

So this year turned out to be an uphill little battle against an army of “whys.” My own principles, my character, goals I’d set for myself, ideas of what or how my life was supposed to look like at 26, and what my heart was supposed to be about, were all things I sat and questioned and prayed about year-around. I dealt with humbling, relational experiences that wrecked my current notion of who I was and challenged me to live beyond myself, and to love, discern, and do the right thing even when it burned. There were so many days I felt inadequate, undervalued, new, desperate, tired, buried. And I’ve been learning how much our good Lord uses these experiences to show us back to ourselves and who He made us to be. I’ve been learning about boldness, too. About how it takes a special kind of bold faith to wait in patience for God’s providence, even when these experiences challenge us to die to ourselves a little bit for a hope and a promise that’s, like my friend Josh Garrels says, beyond the blue.

There are about three other times in my life I’ve felt the presence of God around me as closely as I did this year. What I mean when I say that is…in a pivotal sense. In the sense that if God hadn’t shown up right then and there, the trajectory of my life would’ve likely been very different. I’m awestruck at how He pursues us beyond closed doors and into whatever dark place we’ve landed. And I’m ever more in awe of how he delivers His goodness in a timeline that leaves no doubt as to who put it there — in a way that feels like kismet — as if to remind us He’s never released his firm grip on us.

Around the end of the year, I couldn’t stop listening to Lauren Daigle’s Love Like This — Ok, fine, next to The Paper Kites, as the world and its mother knows by now, yikes. It says, “You say there’s a treasure, you’ll look ‘till you find it, you search to find me. What have I done to deserve love like this?” I don’t think I’m ever going to forget good news that came around the time I discovered her album, or driving around with the windows cracked and the cool Houston air, belting out with my heart as full as it was right then. This kind of love is premium grade, and though I’m sure other challenges will come and more difficult people will walk into my life, I know I’ll live on its afterglow for quite a long time, and that’s the kind of thing you want to sit and share with people.

As it is, this year challenged me on what it means to give grace freely. About what it means to truly, fully accept people as they are, in their failings, relapses and shortcomings. It’s a lesson that’ll stick with me always. I feel weathered down from a fight in the most beautiful of ways. There’s no more left or right; there is no more black and white, there’s only, err, grayce, which covers all faults and flaws in humility and love. I’m learning what it’s like to be the hands and feet of Jesus everywhere I go, even where I’m unwelcome or uninvited. I’m making peace with my own imperfections, too, and the fact that I’ve got so many more miles to go of blurred landscapes and messy hair and movement.

Before I started this post, I began reading old essays I’d written a long time ago in search of a glimpse, albeit a foggy one, into the thoughts and musings of who I’d been four/five years ago, when I still felt I had all the time in the world for false-starts, wrong people, and infinite do-overs. In a blog entry when I graduated college, I wrote that we shouldn’t waste time wishing we had or hadn’t done some things; that we know what we know at a given time or we don’t, and we build our lives around that present notion of who we are. In other words, #noRagrets. I can’t say I disagree just yet —time is linear for us, after all — but these days, I think I rather live by an addendum to that idea, and that is to live faithful not to the present notion of who I am, but of who I will become; not of how I see myself today, but of how our good Lord sees me and sees you: in the future-tense, infinitely worthy of redemption and grace. This year, this has meant going back to the drawing board in many more ways than one. I’ve dropped some things and people and ideas, and picked up others, I’ve filled up my days with habits I hope will show up in my future, I’ve restructured my priorities, I’ve been keeping good company, and I’ve resolved to also being one always, and I’ve been saying “yes” to more uncertain adventures.

This year was hard. But then, conversely, I think about all the days I spent waiting, praying and longing for better days yet to come, and my heart swells up in ways I just can’t explain. You just had to be there with me. Because, again, I’m reminded that this year had been a landscape of uncertainty and defeat, and still flowers bloom in all of it.