New Year, Fickle Me

The clock and calendar did their collective roll into 2022, and nothing changed. Admittedly, I was asleep for the occasion, but it appears Tinkerbell did not come in and tap her magic wand and make everything better. Fireworks didn’t shower us with life-changing embers as they twinkled and fell to the ground. Neither was there dissipating magic at the stroke of midnight turning everything back into pumpkins and mice— after all, no one would accuse 2021 of being magical. We simply finished one year with its mix of highs and lows, grief and joy, fun and hardship, and were ushered into a new one that will have its own unique blend of complicated emotions and experiences.

“Next year all our troubles will be miles away…” Judy Garland lied. This happily simplistic thought is one I’ve been tempted to buy into, but time and experience remind me every 12 months that it’s not so. A date change won’t spur me toward new healthy habits without a fight for consistency to develop them, much as my fickle self wishes that weren’t the case. And grief faced in one year will walk forward into the next, weaving itself just as intricately into the new year as it did the last, along with new joys and new experiences, the complicated tapestry of living. Things will not be all bad or all good, they will just be.

Maybe that seems painfully existential, but I find it freeing. I’m not clinging to a calendar to give me hope, or conversely to pile on guilt over failed resolutions. Instead, my hope lies in a God who walked this earth, who placed himself in the midst of our mess, and said “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33, NLT). 

That’s really all I want to take forward into the new year. I want to remember that I know the Prince of Peace, whatever trials I face. He hasn’t promised to make my path smooth and easy, but He does promise to walk through the darkest valleys with me (Psalm 23:4). And I don’t want to greet the new year with added pressure to live my best life or lose weight or bear some misplaced and crushing responsibility that my family needs to me to be all and do all– if I would just meal plan enough and make the right memories, always doing more, more, more. In this season of life when pressure can be suffocating and life itself is exhausting, I want to remember that He says “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30, NLT)

So I welcome 2022. It’s a new year, with a fickle me, and the same God who is and has always been enough.