2022

     I had hoped to be deep in Dreamland by midnight last night, but sleep evaded me. As I laid there, my mind wandered over the map that was 2022 and as I made mental stops, I was surprised that almost every memory coming to mind was a good one. For a change, I think I can say that 2022 was not charactered or overshadowed by deep pain. Praise God.

     I was burdened a large portion of the year over a particular sin that is prevalent today, ruining relationships and lives. Having been affected by it so personally, it grieved me and weighed heavily as one of those things that you cannot wrap your head around. In October, I talked to counselors at a conference who deal with this very issue - men who had conquered it themselves and now helped others to change. After so much grief and hopelessness, it was a healing moment. 

     I wanted to be more intentional last year in getting together with friends, and I was! I had many good conversations over drinks or food with friends old and new. One of these friends came to me unexpectedly on a day that I had been dreading for weeks, and she spoke words of encouragement over the very issue that caused me to dread that day. It was such a clear answer to prayer and a kindness from the Lord; the kind that doesn't happen very often that you can see. 

     I took four wonderful classes and four pleasant trips in 2022. I toured a mansion, and witnessed the most satisfying beach sunset that I have perhaps ever seen. I went out with a few guys and while things didn't work out, they were both kind, and the experiences were actually happy ones. I attended a family reunion and had meaningful conversations with people I'm blessed to be related to. Family visited over the summer and we had three wonderful weeks with two precious nephews. The memories made were many and so special, and I look back on that as a particularly sweet time. Dad had a major health scare, passing out in an airport across the country and being located in a hospital. We didn't know whether he was dead or alive, making for an upsetting day. Yet he is here and he's healthy. I spent more time outdoors than usual last year, taking walks and staring at the sky, being ministered to by God's creation. We had a groundbreaking ceremony for a long-awaited church sanctuary, and it has been exciting to continue to see progress as a beautiful building takes shape.

     There's one thing the Lord showed me last year that stands out in particular. In July I received some devastating news. It was the biggest gut-punch of my life, resulting in some of the greatest agony mentally, emotionally, and even physically. In the weeks that followed, the same message kept popping up in different places. You know when it seems like God wants to get something across to you, so it's in everyone's mouths, in the podcasts you listen to and the books you read - all at the same time? It was the message of controlling my thoughts. It is so easy for me to go to a dark place mentally and feel consumed by something hard, sad, or wrong. My mind has been a place of struggle for me this year, even going to disturbing places at times. Often there has been a sense of helplessness and resignation that I must just put my head down and wait for the sun to come out in my brain and focus on surviving in the meantime. While I am usually wary of using the victim identity marker, I realized that this was a subtle way of playing the victim. I have been the victim of a lot of hard things - of other people's sin mixed in with my own. 

     But as the same message kept popping up, I was convicted that I am the only one who can control what goes on in my brain, and I do not have to torture myself any longer. I do not have to dwell on the past. I do not have to squeeze a terrible memory out for all it's worth. I do not have to passively wait for healing. I found this realization to be liberating and hope-filled. It hit me that there is another choice and only I can make it. I had lived as if there wasn't a choice, and my mental state was at the mercy of whatever I was going through. One of the profoundly helpful things I heard was, "Time doesn't heal all wounds. What we plant in that time will determine if the wounds are healed or continue festering." I realized that it was up to me and me alone to plant - that's an action verb! - good things into my life and mind if I ever wanted to move on and truly heal. I have made the choice to turn certain thoughts off, as best I am able, and to replace them with prayer and the comforting truths and promises in God's Word.

     This lesson is still being learned but it is helping me as the challenges of life continue. It is a wonderful and empowering thing to have realized that I have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of me, and He is stronger than Satan, outside voices, and my own self, all three of which seem to want to destroy any inner peace I have at times. He does give us the strength that we need mentally to turn towards Him, to turn towards truth and beauty and goodness, and to not stay in the same patterns that we may not even realize are doing us harm (it took me years to see this clearly!). 

     Another way of saying all of that is that I have realized that the strength of God is present and working in me, if I only have the desire and heart to see it. I look back on 2022 with thankfulness for that and all of the other things He showed me, for so many blessings both big and small, for a life that is full of stability and rich with people, undeserved kindnesses, and eternal hope.