I will fear no evil for you (and 2016) are with me. Your rod and staff and my new diet comfort me.
As the saying goes “You win some. You lose some.” This year was a total loss for me and I know I’m not alone. While each year is often filled with highs and lows I think it’s safe to say that we will experience at least one whole year that feels like a total low. I can now name three years in my adult life that I write off at complete losses. Considering my grown up years consist of a whopping 13 year total, three years seems rather high. Nevertheless, It’s okay.
Today may not be okay, but it’s going to be okay eventually. For me, 2011 was a horrible year. Everything went wrong for me and I struggled greatly. It felt like the most Biblical desert. I was wandering aimlessly through the year just knowing that there was a promised land. It seriously sucked to walk through it, and I thank God it didn’t last 40 years, but the entire time I knew in my heart of hearts there was a promise on the other side. While the desert was filled with pain and worry I knew it had an end date just like I know 2015 has an end date.
Sure enough in the spring of 2012 my life changed dramatically. In a bold move I quit my job to finish school. I needed roommates to help pay the bills and that is how I met my husband. While getting married has created its own troubles, just as I knew was God’s promise, I escaped the Great Desert of 2011. I wasn’t unchanged or without scars, but I made it.
This year has been filled with its own struggles. While I’m eternally grateful on this occasion that I had my husband by my side (despite the moments I would have personally walked him off a ledge), I will be so happy to say goodbye to this year. I don’t exactly liken the year to that same desert, nor do I feel that same sort of Biblical promise, I know that the promise has never changed. Understanding that promise is my strength through this time of trial. It’s almost over. (I hope.)
If this year was a desert for you, know you are not alone. It doesn’t matter how your desert compares to mine or anyone else’s. If it’s a desert for you, then it’s desert enough. And, it’s almost over. Maybe it won’t literally ring in with the new year, but it is almost over. A new chapter is coming. And hopefully that chapter brings renewed life to each of us. If it doesn’t, the promise remains the same. Hang in there. It’s almost over.