Dear 2021,
As you began, I was unable to capture a feeling of hope or optimism for the days ahead. Typically, in years past, I would write out some goals I wanted to accomplish--not knowing how much I would be able to stick to those goals, but still wanting to have things to look forward to.
This year, I was unable to do that.
2019 ended very poorly, and 2020 ended up being one of the hardest years my family and I (and nearly everyone) has had to deal with--I still feel like I am recovering from the trauma of that year. When I look at you compared to these other years, I can see that you still had some very terrible things happen. More people I know have lost loved ones this year than in the last year, we've had more devastating natural disasters, and it just grows more and more apparent that this world is full of brokenness. When I looked into entering the new year, I felt little to no optimism for making goals or projecting hopes for the future.
Though you have proven to be just as difficult as the years before, you have also brought a lot of good and growth for me. My "Word for 2021" was "SEEK", with Luke 12:31-32 being the verses that led me into the days ahead. I didn't always do a good job of "Seeking the kingdom first." But there have been a lot of ways I can see myself growing and softening into loving my neighbor more--even if our lives look very different. This will be a lifetime pursuit, and something I don't know if I will ever be an expert in, but I hope to seek it more deeply through the love of Christ.
My goal for "SEEK" was also to be open to seeking answers to my health, and seeking out help by finding a trusted counselor or therapist to help me work out some deeper wounds in my heart. I had some medical tests done; and, though it took time, I finally did find someone to share my heart with that cares for me in a professional, beautiful way.
Though I still have a long way to go, and still a lot more questions than answers, I am thankful for all I learned about my health and how to better heal after such a long season of loss and disappointment.
If I'm honest, grief has taken a toll on me. I have grown weary with living in a place where sorrow is never far away. Sadness feels like my "default" emotion. I thought maybe as time passed, I'd be able to overcome this prevailing grief and defeat it with 'facts and logic'. But as you have once again shown me, 2021, there are always more things to be sad about, more suffering to endure, and more losses to be had.
I am sad for so many people who have lost loved ones this year.
I am sad to enter another year without a living baby inside me or inside our arms.
I am sad for the brokenness that I see in my life and in people I love every day.
It takes a toll to live in "survivor mode" for so long. (Part of me wonders if that is part of the reason why I have gained more weight in these last two years than I have in the first five of our marriage combined.)
But this survivor has also learned something else this year. Things that I hope to expound upon and grow as I look into the future.
The biggest things I learned this year were: grace, how to be more gentle with myself, and that sorrow is not all there is.
Grace: I think the chaos of these last few years have shown me the depths of my frailty. I have been more angry, grief-stricken, and full of despair these last few years, rivaled only by how I felt directly after our first miscarriage in 2015. That place of frailty drove me in my struggle for control--but showed me just how out of control and broken I really am. As someone who is very hard on herself, grace does not come easily to me.
But God is SO gracious; and out of His grace, I started seeing that I don't have to try so hard to be the master of my own fate. I can actually live in this imperfect body and imperfect world. Things are messy, and that's okay. I don't have to be my own savior, or the one that saves others. It's when I rest in the fact that I am held in this chaos that I can truly feel free to give grace to myself.
Gentleness: I mentioned my weight and my struggles with health/infertility earlier. These things threaten to steal my joy and hope on a daily basis. It truly is so difficult to be so insecure about these things that I sometimes feel bound by them. There is a real grief as I grow older and continue to feel like I am broken on a deep level because I haven't carried a pregnancy to full term (while it seems like such an easy thing for so many others to do.) My weight is not something I always worry about, but I notice it more and more as I have to give away yet another piece of clothing, or when I look at pictures of myself.
But gentleness...
Gentleness goes hand-in-hand with God's grace. Sometimes I feel like the answer is to become harsher on myself--to beat myself up for being such a 'failure' or for "letting myself get to this point". But gentleness urges me to see myself with the eyes of love; to tell my body "thank you" for protecting me and for carrying me through so much trauma from the last few years. To exercise not out of fear in my appearance, but out of care for myself and my strength. Gentleness helps me know that my grief and jealousy are often expressions of love for my babies and are important for learning to let go of the expectations I had for my life. Gentleness doesn't just leave me where I am, but it allows me to show love to myself where I am.
Sorrow is not all there is: This life and this world will leave us with a lot of disappointment and grief. And it is good to keep in mind that this is not all there is. Someday, redemption--true redemption--will come; and with it, there will be glory and peace. But that truth can feel distant and hollow when we are living in the thick of immense pain. I have often just accepted that life is just a series of one horrible thing after another. I sometimes think that God just wants me to be miserable all the time to "teach me life lessons" or whatever.
But there is joy too. Joy is not ungodly, nor is happiness. In fact, why would (Nem. 8:10) say: "The joy of the Lord is my strength" if that wasn't something I could experience? Joy doesn't always feel like strength. In the past I have despised feeling joyful because it has a way of opening my heart up to greater levels of feeling and greater potential for pain. But joy is strength precisely because it is not my "default position". I can feel all the sorrow and grief in myself, but I need supernatural power to feel true joy.
I'm not saying that sadness is a bad thing. Grief is a great teacher; and it is something it takes patience to learn to honor and create space for. But grief is not all there is. It is not the end-all-be-all, nor is it the highest virtue.
2021 also had some beautiful gifts of joy to offer me. Sometimes joy came alongside some new experience or thing to look forward to; but sometimes it came in the silence and in the moments that grace and gentleness told me it was okay to let go of control.
This letter is getting kind of long; and I've already cried my way through the sentences that were probably a little too honest to share with the world-wide-web. But even though you were a hard year to get through, I am thankful for you 2021. I am thankful for the lessons you taught me, for the ways I grew and healed. I am thankful for the truth that I am held, even into the new unknown.
And I am thankful that you are over.
Goodbye old year!
-RNM