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How to have a truly happy new year.

For the first time in years, I don’t remember my New Year’s resolution from January. Usually, I write it down in my journal or on a note I stick to my mirror. There’s been many of those dog-eared sticky notes from years past. The year of contentment. Speaking life. We passed pancakes across the breakfast table on January 1st this year. “What do you want from 2018?” I can’t remember my answer. I know what I didn’t want though. I didn’t want to walk into her office and share the parts of my life I’m inclined to hide. I didn’t want to Facetime her the day after she delivered her baby that never breathed. I didn’t want to spend four months wondering how I’d walk into her house on Christmas day and see her empty chair. I didn’t want to go on another first date that led nowhere. We sit across from each other in a little coffee shop in Colorado, picking at a charcuterie board. “When I think about all of the things I have left to go through,” her voice cracks....
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Hand in hand.

“Enoch walked faithfully with God” (Gen. 5:24).

But there are weeks when I feel like it would be easier to run ahead of God. To let go of His hand and to forge ahead on my own, to catch the view on the other side of the hill, to try to find clarity before the light fades.

Why Lord, why is it taking so long to get to the other side? Will we have to walk through the night?

There are weeks when walking with God seems like stepping into pain. It seems more like the tear-filled prayers in the middle of the night and the balled-up Kleenexes covering the living room floor.

It seems. It seems.

And then she writes the reference of Psalm 23 with a big black magic marker on piece of paper ripped out of a notebook. And I read it to her aloud as my heart aches. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me…You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies…Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”

And we both start giggling because the reality of His promises puts our pain in perspective. We laugh and laugh because His promises are so big, it’s hilarious. And yet, they’re true.

I’d rather hold His hand in the darkness than live alone in the light. I’d rather know pain in His embrace than know every earthly pleasure apart from His love.

In the middle of the work day, I hold back the tears and ask for a moment of grace. Only a moment. And then I’ll ask for one more moment after that. And after that.

Step by step. As Joy and Pain go hand-in-hand, I can hardly tell the two apart.

“Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame” (Psalm 25:3).  

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