ᴡʜᴏ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇᴄᴏᴍᴇ ɪɴ 2023?

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Hands on the wheel, eyes on the road in front of me, I’m moving torward what I hope is a beautiful destination. Yet I must constantly look back through the mirrors of the car to be guided safely forward.

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I’m holding on to something most people want to let go of heading into the new year: I’m holding on to the hard things that happened in 2022, but NOT to dwell in the past.

2022 is the year absolutely nothing went as I expected. I do not wear chronic illness like a badge. I pray every day • Every • Day • to be free of it. It is not my identity. No more than any of the other traumas (big T & lil’ t) I’ve endured.

Childhood sexual abuse, verbal and emotional abuse. Lots of “little t” chronic abandonment. Clergy sexual abuse during the teen years. Parent of children who endured big T trauma lasting a decade (we know trauma has a way of being the {bad} “gift” that keeps on giving beyond those years). The pandemic. Significant chronic losses. And many health crises that left me a shell of the person I used to be by the fall of 2022.

The Unseen.

The reel I posted on Instagram the first week of January, recapping the year, doesn’t show the untold hours spent in bed, unable to move about, Andy helping me to the bathroom. I thank God genuinely and deeply for the moments it shows when I could get out and live life away from the bed or sofa. But those moments still come with a high price tag. The amazing time with our adult kids and grands between Christmas and New Year's slammed me in the bed again, with every cell of my body screaming at me from the inside. Still, two weeks later, just barely beginning to come up.

I’m learning to listen. Admittedly, I can be terrible at responding with the right need. But where I once felt my body had betrayed me like so many others in life, I now understand it is simply • loudly • telling the story of me. All the big T’s and little t’s screaming to be heard. The body really does keep the score.

Survival + Protection = Friend & Foe

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Often, when we are trudging through difficult circumstances, we are doing the bare minimum to survive. Our brain kicks in to do what it was made to do; find the quickest route through to protect us from whatever threatens our safety. In chronic suffering, this survival mode shuts down our ability to name and present truth. It also shuts down our ability to name the pain, grieve the losses, and receive comfort and care. Our emotions become numb to protect us from feeling pain and loss. But that also prevents us from feeling love and joy.

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𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝘄𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀.

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𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘄𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝘆𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝗿𝗿𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘂𝘀, 𝘄𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗵.

No matter how hard we focus on what’s in front of us, what is behind us will always follow closely. But what if hindsight really is 20/20? What if the answers to who we want to become in the new year are seen more clearly by looking back at what was lost on 2022?

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Until we can name our pain, grieve our losses, and receive love and care, we will not move forward whole, meaning we will not truly become who we desire to be.

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Countless times last year I said, “𝙄’𝙫𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙗𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙚. 𝙄 𝙙𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙤.” Scattered debris lies everywhere from constant deferred hope that only makes us heartsick. There are so many disappointments from crushed expectations. In the immediate experience of it all, I misunderstood God’s quietness.

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A few times I heard him say He just wanted to love on me, remain with me in it. But I rejected the offer because I didn’t understand what was going on. I just wanted to 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘵.

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I hear Jesus’s cry now, “𝙎𝙤 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙄 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙖 𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙠𝙨 𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙𝙣’𝙩 𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙢𝙚.” (Matt. 23:37)

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𝗦𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿, 𝗜’𝗺 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗜 𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗻’𝘁 𝗱𝗼 𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿.

I'm going to:

• let God hold me.
• allow God to love on me.
• name the pain of 2022 while asking Him to reflect His Truth upon the mirror of my circumstances.
• look back and see the beautiful that was there all along.
• ask God to walk me through the broken pieces in order to gather lost treasures stolen along the way • to bring them back into 2023 • to make me whole.

𝗟𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝗿𝗿𝗼𝗿.

What do you see? Only the hard and ugly? Or something beautiful?

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If you have debris scattered everywhere from last year like I do, if you have much still to process, will you join me in embracing the practices that will actually help you move forward WHOLE, and see the beautiful in the holy, hard, and sacred?
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Yes, learning and growing is part of it, as God does want to mature us. Then, there's the deeper path: to find what was lost and recover those things through union and intimacy with Jesus.

What does that look like practically?

Here's a prayer for us:

Click HERE: it includes a caption I think you'll love (mini excerpt: What a relief we aren't failures. Nothing is wrong with us because we can't keep New Year's resolutions a full twelve months, much less one month. We aren't broken because we can't keep up. The good news is, this is not a weakness, or a flaw. But rather, a brilliant design. Cars were made to run on fuel. God created human beings to run on Him [C.S. Lewis] - for unity with Himself.)

You can also watch the 2022 Recap reel I mentioned by clicking HERE. Joy grows defiantly through pain.

I'd love to hear from you. Hit reply to tell me what you are going to do this year that you know you didn't do last year.

Here's to becoming the new creation God has known you to be before all those things that happened to you, to becoming the real you.

P.S. Check out my friend, Jennifer, who took the awesome photos, for more on Joy in season and out of season, in the good times and the hard. Click--> @jennifersakata​

If you found yourself here by way of a friend, subscribe at the link below. It would be a grace to sit together. Explore our stories, you and I. See how God might write the next chapter.