I have been in 2016 long enough to be able to look back at 2015 with fresh eyes. Because, goodness gracious, it was a hard year. I was so happy when I shut the door on it and declared, "I am done with you!" However, now I can say that although 2015 was hard, it brought many lessons.. And honestly, it you do not learn a lesson in the hard, what good is it anyway? The hard can suffocate the air out of us, beat us down until we are completely broken, strip us of our energy, joy and ability to do daily tasks, and it can get us to the point of giving up. Or hard can do amazing things if we allow it..
What I have decided to do with 2015 is to LEARN. What can I glean from a time that I consider hard?
I lost a job in 2015.. one I planned on retiring from.. But I have learned that God is always, always working on a plan for my life and it doesn't always include what I thought I did. I may have planned to retire from that particular place but He had another plan and led me down another road to get there. I have to trust that His plan is way better and I know from experience that the things that are taken away, are replaced with much better. How could I not believe that He is always looking out for me?
I experienced a change where I was serving unlike anything I had ever experienced and it hurt and it was difficult to process, understand and conform to. All of the years we had been serving had been with the same core group of people. One by one they left.. and then they were ALL gone. I never questioned God but I was rocked to my core by what was going on and it did cause me to wonder what God was doing and why. Fast forward months later and God.. God was always in control, as always. We are back, with positions all filled again, and things are falling into a new rhythm. I desperately miss the ones that have gone, but I know that just like when I made a job change, God was working the same thing out for them. I also learned that it isn't about me. I was hurt and sad and floundering around.. but guess what? It wasn't about what I wanted. It was about what God was doing in THEIR lives. And it was also about a big change in our serving area that caused every single one of us to not have our faith in a person and to depend on God alone. Well, isn't that a lesson we all need!
I lost dear friends and family members this year to death. My two youngest children lost friends to death. Goodness, there were times we couldn't catch our breath for the grief that overtook us. But, oh how I learned! I learned I cannot fix everything for my children. I have to let them learn to grieve and process. I have to let them learn that life is short, sometimes far shorter than it should be and shorter than we can accept, in order that they may appreciate the life given to them more. I learned to be so thankful for each breath. I learned that when loss and grief come knocking, as they most assuredly will, to be prepared to give praise in the mourning.. for Heaven's gain and for the way grieving draws us closer to Him.
I lost dear friends this year because the friendship was just finished, for whatever reason. This one was really hard because they didn't die.. they are still there.. and yet they aren't. And somehow I cannot help but feel that I could have stopped it..could have done something, anything, to salvage what once was. Yet, not matter what I try, I can't make it work, can't make it be what it was. So, I ended up feeling alone and sad and isolated and trying to figure out what to do. But then, the lesson.. I learned that sometimes friends are gone so new ones can come. I learned that the friends I had weren't feeding my heart. I learned the friendship wasn't what I thought in the first place, because if it was, wouldn't it still be around?
As I think of my hard and painful things, my mind also brings forth images of my Jesus, hanging on a cross, covered in blood, meat showing from torn skin, His head hanging as the crown of thorns is pressed down upon His head.. He is innocent and yet punished.. for ME.. Do I really have it all that hard? What if His were my cross to bear? And oh, what a testimony I have through my hard.. for His glory and honor.. And what is my suffering compared to His if I allow Him glory in my hard?
Sometimes, it just takes a change of how we look at things to appreciate them rather than let them get them get the best of us. Sometimes it is all about our perspective.. Be thankful for your hard times, trials and sufferings. It is nothing compared to what He has suffered for us...
