"After Two Whole Years... It's Not Me. It's God."

Have you ever felt forgotten? Rejected? Unappreciated? 

Have you ever waited for something to get better, and you feel like it’s taking forever?

I have. I get stuck in the seeming unfairness of a situation and then that filters over into my attitude towards many other things. Then, I’m so focused on what’s WRONG in my life that I am blinded to what is trying to be RIGHT.

 

I wonder if Joseph felt that way in the Old Testament when his brothers betrayed him and sold him into slavery. When his master’s wife lied on him and accused him unjustly and had him arrested. When he helped his fellow prisoners and they promised to remember him and help him, but then they didn’t. I wonder through all those years, all those trials, how soon or how often Joseph had to do a heart-check and seriously examine his own pride and recommit to trust God’s plan. 

It had to happen often, I would imagine.

 

Today, the first verse I read struck me with these thoughts. 

Genesis 41:1 says, “After two whole years…”

 

Those four words hit my heart like a ton of bricks. They felt heavy and long and I could just hear myself crying out in exasperated agony - “God, it’s been TWO WHOLE yearsssss of this!” 

 

Of what, though? What does this mean for Joseph? If you flip back to the end of the chapter before, you’ll see that the last verse says that the chief cupbearer that Joseph helped, who promised to help Joseph when he was out of prison, forgot about him and didn’t help him. And already by that point in Joseph’s life, it had been a lot of years of abuse and injustice and unkindness. 

A lot of years. 

Would it ever end? Would it get better? What about the life that he thought God had promised him in a dream when he was younger? This was not the way he thought his life would go. Why would God tell him something and then allow all this bad stuff to happen?

I don’t know if Joseph asked himself those questions. But I imagine he did. Because the answer to those questions only comes when we truly ask God to show us what He is working out in our lives. 

God spent those years preparing Joseph’s heart. Preparing him to be a kind and compassionate leader. Humbling him, no doubt. Building up honorable things within him and stripping away some of the dishonorable thoughts and actions. Overall…inviting Joseph to trust Him for the long haul. Even when it feels like the “whole” hard years are just not ending. What we see in Joseph is that he still always tried to do the right thing, the God-honoring thing. 

 

The crazy thing about this verse is that this still is not the truly good part of Joseph’s story. After all those years, these two more years still didn’t mark the end of struggles, and everything was not suddenly better. 

But after two whole years, God moved Joseph forward.

Because it was God’s time.  

After two whole years, God turned the page, and God initiated an action that spurred the cupbearer's memory, and the cupbearer finally remembered his promise to Joseph. 

It was time. It was all working all along in God’s perfect time. He was working with Joseph, and he was working in Joseph’s family miles away. He was working on Pharaoh, and on the cupbearer. God wasn’t silent or doing nothing in those two whole years! Oh, no! He was working in all of their lives, putting puzzle pieces together in the way only He can.

God still works that way today.

Others may forget us. Abandon us. Wound us. Imprison us.

God never does. Even we are sitting in a pit that we did not choose. God is working.

When Pharaoh heard what Joseph could do, how he could help Pharaoh, verse fourteen says that they went and “quickly” brought him out of the pit and changed his clothes! After waiting so long, suddenly it all began to change! His life suddenly became fresh and new.

Joseph was immediately given yet another opportunity to represent God...to speak truth. To act righteously when I’m sure it was hard. Maybe he felt used? Maybe he wanted to tell them all no? But still, the very first thing that Joseph did was point them all to God! He didn’t even take credit himself for what they thought he could do. He told them immediately, “It’s not me. It’s God.”

Oh! I wonder...

I wonder if all those years this was the attitude that God was working in Joseph? Years before, Joseph had almost bragged to his brothers about God’s plan for him. He had made that part about him. He made himself great. 

 

Now, all these years later, the first words he says is - “It’s not me. It’s God.” 

 

I think Joseph realized in all those years that it was God’s love for him that was shaping him and teaching him and preparing him. I think he grew in his relationship with God during his trials in ways he wouldn’t have if he had stayed in his nice comfortable home as the favored child of his father. The Bible tells us in Romans, “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

 

I think Joseph learned all this. Maybe he especially learned it and accepted and believed it in those final “two whole years.” 

 

Friend. Those "two whole years" in your life are never wasted.

Like I said, this is not the end of Joseph’s struggles. But it does get better after this! Joseph rises to power, is given lots of responsibility and his voice matters to the whole land of Egypt. Eventually he even has an opportunity to confront his betraying brothers. 

He could have destroyed them. He could have said, “I told you so! I told you that you would bow down to me one day! I was right!” He could have made them suffer. And God so kindly shows us the struggle and temptation as Joseph battles with that pain and hurt and wanting vengeance. But God had spent years working on Joseph, preparing his heart. 

He had the ability and the right to destroy them. But he ultimately offered them grace and mercy and forgiveness and shelter. 

 

Just like God offers to us. 

God is always shaping us to be more like Him.

So, try not to despair when it feels like it’s just been “two whole years” after “two whole years” of hardship in your life. God is doing something in those two years. They may be painful, but they are not pointless. 

 

I feel this way now, at the beginning of 2023. I feel like the last few years of my life have been a series of painful years. Betrayal and abuse and abandonment and discouragement. Injustice and tears. “Disappointment” is the word that floats around my heart the most. I was even angry at God for allowing certain things to happen. I was just so disappointed. And for a while, I was so hyper-focused on that, that I forgot to look and see that God never left me. That He didn’t just allow bad things - He rescued me from things that were bad for me; He even rescued me from my own destructive thoughts and habits. I used to idolize my marriage. I took credit for the "Godliness" and goodness of it. I thought for sure God would use my husband and I to teach other people how to have a great marriage. Ten years in, that facade crumbled before my eyes. And I thought I could fix it.

 

My attitude has changed a lot in these years. Three whole years ago, I was elated at this time in January. I just knew my life was headed out of the pit I’d been struggling in for years, and things were going to get better! I just knew it. God was going to fix the situation, surely! Don't we often think God is only working if things work out like we plan for them to?

I bet Joseph felt elated as well when the cupbearer was released from prison, and he probably jumped up with excitement every time he heard someone coming, and thought, Oh, yeah! The cupbearer told them! This is it! I’m getting free! Imagine the disappointment as day after day, week after week, crept by, and nothing. No one came to free him. I think maybe that's because Joseph's hope was in the cupbearer. We should never put more hope in people than we do in God. 

 

I thought my freedom was going to come one way three years ago - by God healing my marriage. But, instead, God brought me out of the marriage, and He healed me. He used the ensuing years to help me let go of pride, and hurt, and bitterness, and resentment. He reoriented my heart. He helped me see that I had all my hope in the correct actions of someone else. I was depending on them to do the "right thing" so I could feel better. I think if God would have healed my marriage, I would have taken so much pride in that. I would have thought, This happened because I never gave up! This happened because of my faith in God. This happened because of MY right actions. This happened because I was such a good wife. See how good I am? Be good and you get good things from God! 

 

That is one of the first incorrect theological ideals that God broke down in me that I didn’t even realize I had operated under for almost two decades of my Christian walk. God showed me that I had put someone else in His place. And that I thought if I obeyed God, and others obeyed God, life would be problem-free. 

I knew that wasn’t really true. But I lived like it was: Follow the rules, be a good girl, and bad things don’t happen. Be a good wife, support your husband, and he’ll love you forever. 

No. God showed me that was a prison of codependency and idolization. I had to take a long, hard look at myself. At my responses. At my motivation. At what I truly believed about God and His righteousness and His justice and His mercy. And His right to do whatever He wanted to with my life.

 

It took me two whole years to surrender to just part of that thinking! It's an ongoing process, not sure we ever truly get there!

But crazily enough, I have reached a point where I am thankful for these long years. I am not the same girl I was 3 years ago. I’m definitely not the same girl I was who married and moved here 20 years ago! I feel today like Joseph must have felt when he was finally brought out of the jail - excited and scared and hesitant and full of joy, but still cautious! I imagine Joseph just saying, “Okay, God … what now? Where are you taking me next?”

 

God uses ALL the years. He has a plan for each second. We can trust Him with it. Whatever that thing is that you’re facing, whatever long and painful season you are in, God is doing a good thing there. For you, and for others around you. It’s never just about us. Like Joseph said, “It’s not me. It’s God.”

 

Because of Joseph, even Pharaoh acknowledged God. Ultimately, the whole land of Egypt got to see the God that Joseph served. He went from prisoner to ruler. But it didn’t happen overnight. It was a process. A process that led him through pits and prisons and palaces and power.

 

The following chapters in Genesis are such a beautiful glimpse into the struggle going in Joseph's heart regarding his bitterness and pain at his brothers, and the power of forgiveness and redemption. In chapter 45, he finally breaks and weeps loudly and tells his brothers, "Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life ... it was not you who sent me here, but God." Joseph's heart was set free. He extended mercy and grace because maybe he saw that his brothers were in prisons themselves of regret and jealousy and anger?

 

Sometimes, we get stuck in prisons of our own making. Prisons in our minds and hearts. We get held captive by negative thoughts and bitterness. We are chained to our fears and the expectations of others. We believe lies about our identity, and we think the key to freedom is to just accept that this is who we are. No. Truth is freedom. God is truth. His way is the only freedom. John 8:10 says, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Ask God to give you freedom. Ask God to show you what bondage you're holding onto in your heart. Ask God to help you be the best representative of His character that you can. This season, these "whole years," are not only for you - it's for the preserving of many lives. And every chance you get, tell others - “It’s not me. It’s God.”

Keep On Keepin' On

We are always becoming something...

Either less or more than we used to be before.
Either better or worse than where we were.
We make choices every day that either propel us forward or push us back.

Becoming is a process that requires perseverance, patience, progress, and good passengers.

Becoming a new thing, a better thing, is part of the process God has us all on.
That hard thing you’re dealing with right now is God’s way of trying to teach you how to persevere, to endure. James chapter one tells us that tests and challenges in life are a gift that forces faith to step into action or fall by the wayside.
The easy thing is giving up.
The hard, but better, thing is following through and seeing it to completion.
I know that we want to hurry up and get on with it.
We want to be done with the hard thing. It’s exhausting.
That’s why one of the best gifts we can give ourselves is patience.
You didn’t become who you are right now overnight, and you won’t become the best version of yourself overnight, either.
Becoming is a process...
That word is both past, present, and future.
It is the actions of coming from somewhere and being somewhere while also on your way to somewhere else.
It’s a journey.
Yes...there will be bumps in the road. You can’t control those, but you can control how carefully and patiently you drive over them. An unseen hazard may flatten a tire. In that moment you can either stop, or you can put in the effort to persevere and repair the tire and keep going. You might run out of gas if you go too long without refueling, so you must be careful to rest and keep your tank full.

Lastly...you need good passengers with you. You need those who will propel you towards “Righteous Road” (like the Message says in Proverbs 8), who give you wise direction and Godly counsel to take your best next step. The can’t drive for you, but they can encourage you to keep going. Choose those passengers wisely.

The important thing in “becoming” is to keep coming forward.
Keep persevering.
Be patient in the hard-to-maneuver places.
Pick good passengers.
And keep pressing forward.

Is it Time for You to Level Up?

"If I can just get this one thing done, or if I can just get passed this one difficult area, or if I can just achieve this area of success, everything will just level out and be easier and life will be smooth sailing…"

Have you ever thought that? I have. A lot.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. The truth is, everything we do today is preparing us for a harder tomorrow.

I mean, it starts the moment we are born! We spend the first year learning how to do more, be more independent and become more mobile. We enter the world learning and yearning to reach the next level: infancy to childhood, childhood to adolescence, adolescence to adulthood, and on and on.

Can you imagine if a three year old decided they had reached their potential because they could feed themselves and go potty on their own and walk and talk? And so they decided they were done doing more or learning any new harder things.

It’s ridiculous and sad to even think about that!

But that’s really how grown-up people think a lot! When we adopt that type of thinking we are really saying that we want to stop growing, that we want to level out. And that’s not God’s goal. God is constantly pushing us to grow, and to change.

God isn’t yearning for us to level out...he’s yearning for us to level up, and get closer to Him.

He wants us to learn those better things because it’s better for us!

I have witnessed this in my own life is some big ways in recent years. Those ways were never easy. I have referred to them sometimes as growth spurts, or growing pains. It’s like that same three year old toddler cutting new teeth... Anyone who has ever had a teething baby knows that the process is not a happy one. It’s uncomfortable for them and painful at times and they get whiny and don’t sleep good and they slobber SO MUCH.

It’s messy and painful.

But the end result is a toddler who can now consume bigger and harder foods. They leveled up from soft mushy food and baby milk to the more mature stuff that their growing body needed in order to thrive.

Friend, that’s what God is always working in our lives. He desires for us to grow up, level up, in our faith and become more and more like Him. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13:11, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

We were not created to stay, or live, in a lower level.

It can also be compared to a video game. The gamer’s goal is to get to the next level, to gain helpful tools and power along the way that will assist them in that next level, and to ultimately reach the finish line. Who plays a video game just to replay the same level over and over again?

No one.

We were made to level up. And in each level of life God provides tools and fuel and friends that can help us complete that level and assist us in the next level and give us fuel to keep going.

If you are in a hard level in your life right now that is so challenging and feels like it is lasting forever, please know you CAN get through it! I know the deep frustration that comes from repeating the same mistakes and feeling stuck in a hard level. But I also know that God wants you to get through it and He provides what you need in this level to prepare you for the one to come. If you feel like you keep tripping up, try to change your approach. What are you missing? What tool is there to help you that you have overlooked? Who is there to give you a boost? Where do you need to pause and refuel? And what is a weak spot that keeps knocking you down?

There are some tools that you can ONLY get by going through the hard level. God didn't lead you into that level to defeat you; He led you to it to prepare you for the next one!

I heard God speaking deep into my spirit recently, with a gentle voice and an outstretched hand, “Welcome to the next level.”

I am only just now learning that this is both a celebratory promotion and a terrifying challenge into the unknown!

A few years ago, I stepped out of a hard level and mistakenly thought I was entering an easy phase now. I thought because I had beaten the last level, and the challenge was conquered, this new level would be a breeze! I was so disappointed, and frankly heartbroken, to, instead, encounter a new level of hard. I admit I felt defeated for a while because I was just plain tired, and it often felt too hard. New challenges and new terrain and new enemies sucker-punched me because I entered that level with incorrect expectations and very low energy. It took me a long time...too long... to realize that the hard level I had just left was preparing me for this new level.

I think our mistaken expectations of what growth looks like and requires often feels a lot like being sucker-punched. 

It’s like the teenager who can’t wait to get out of High School because they just know life will be so much easier (insert raucous laughter here!)...then reality hits them and they realize they just leveled up!

We often have grand expectations of ease and beauty in the next level, if we can just get there! Don’t get me wrong - there is plenty of beauty along the journey, and there are joyful surprises mixed in along the way. But our focus changes when we believe every step we take is preparing us for the steps we’ll have to take ahead.

Forty years into my journey, I am just now learning to adjust my expectations. When I do, though, I can be thankful for the tools and struggles in this level because I know they are going to help me in the next level. Much like that drooling teething baby, it may be messy and painful and I will probably whine and complain from time to time. But when I don’t have to eat pureed food any longer I will be so glad that I didn’t stay in the baby level! I am sure the children of Israel thought once they actually made it to the Promised Land, they would level out and life would be easy! But the first thing that happened was battle and struggle and new enemies. God used their history, and every step of those 40 years, to prepare them for the next level. He does the same today with you and I.

So get going, keep moving, stop looking back. Look for the tools and fuel and friends that are supplied in your current level. And soon enough, you’ll hear God’s gentle words welcoming you into the next level, which is always one step closer to Him!

What Wounds Me Doesn't Have to Consume Me

Five months ago, I was walking into my office, wearing my favorite shirt that says “Not Today Satan” and feeling like I was ready to conquer the day! Suddenly I catapulted forward for no apparent reason and hit the tile floor hard. My left ankle twisted under me and the brunt of my weight landed on my left kneecap, making a loud pop. Notably, I had already had a rough morning prior to that. Which is the reason I proudly put on that shirt and shook my fist in Satan’s face. Later, after my fall, I jokingly-but-seriously told people that I thought Satan had pushed me down!

Anyway, I landed very hard. I immediately knew I was wounded more than just slightly. What I did NOT know was that recovery was going to be such a long and exasperating process.

There was initial pain and visible swelling. But the Doctor did an x-ray and said no broken bones, probably just a sprain, and sent me home with a knee brace and crutches.

For five months I did everything the Doctor told me. I wore the knee brace and avoided the activities he told me to avoid. I did weeks of physical therapy and all the follow-up exercises.

I followed all the rules.

But my knee did not get better.

As the weeks and months crept by and I dealt with daily pain and limitations, my frustration grew and I began to get mad at how this was still affecting my life, even after I had done what I was told to do to get better.

This wasn’t even my fault and it felt like such a stupid thing for it to be affecting my life so much. It made me angry.

Here’s the kicker, though. Thanks to picky insurance, it was a long time before they would approve an MRI which could better see what the exact injury was. Up to that point, they were mostly just guessing and trying to take the easy and least expensive way. Once they finally, just recently, did the more in-depth tests, they saw there was deep internal wounding. More so, they acknowledged that the continued grinding and wear on the wounded area for 5 months had exacerbated the injury. It wore away at all the cushioning cartilage in between my bones. Now, I am meeting with an orthopedic surgeon to determine best treatment.

I have often lately had to fight feelings of anger and irritation at the knowledge that this injury, this wound, may be something that leaves me with a permanent limp. The cartilage in between my kneecap and my thigh bone will most likely never be the way it was before.

Pondering all this lately at the very same time that I am on a journey with God learning about forgiving emotional and relational wounds is probably the only thing about all this that is NOT an accident! (Just kidding! I don't believe in accidents!) Today I kept thinking how closely these things correlate to each other. When people wound us with words or actions, it’s a lot like suddenly and unexpectedly being knocked to the ground. It hurts. It hurts our pride and our hearts and it knocks the wind out of us. Several details determine how quickly we get back up and how extensive our injuries are. Do we land on something hard (anger, resentment, unforgiveness), or something soft (grace, mercy, kindness, forgiveness)? Do we get immediate proper care (spiritually strong friends)? Do we get accurate diagnosis of the deeper problem (counseling or soul-care)? Do we wallow in our pain and baby our wound (woe-is-me, depression), or do the hard work to strengthen the weakened part (letting go, letting God be our strength)?

So I had this thought today:

It’s easy to wallow.

It’s hard to work it out.

What wounds me doesn’t have to consume me.

The wounding wasn’t my fault.

But the healing is my responsibility.

Whatever has hurt you in this life is awful. It’s not fair. Maybe you feel like you followed all the rules and did all the right things and you should be better by now. I know how that feels! It’s hard. And it’s hard not to be angry at whoever inflicted the wound. It's a hard truth to swallow that you may have an emotional limp forever. It may change your life...it probably will. But it doesn’t have to consume your life. God wants to use the wound to expose a deeper source of infection. That's why He allows it. He wants us to truly look to Him as the Great Physician who wants to make us more healthy. And our wounds only truly heal when we walk in forgiveness, instead of wallowing in fault and fear and feelings of "it's not fair." When we hold on to all those wallowing feelings, it causes the wound to deepen and get septic. Either the wound can consume you, or forgiveness can heal your heart.

You didn't choose to be wounded, but you get to choose your healing.

"Put on then, as God's chosen people, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and forgive one another if any of you has a complaint against someone. Forgive as the LORD forgave you. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together perfectly."  - Colossians 3:12-14

When It's Too Much

You get bad news.
A short while later, something else hard happens.
Then that experience is followed with more heavy things.
And it  just   
feels     like    too     much.

Heavy thing after heavy thing after heavy thing, with barely any time to breathe in between.
Have you ever felt that way? Like it's too much? I have... I do.
"Battle weary" is how I described it to someone recently. When you are weary to the depths.


God clearly whispered to my heart four years ago to get ready, to get my Armor on, and be watchful.
God is good to us like that. He warns us. He prepares us. But He wants us to choose to use what He's prepared.
There have been times in the years since that warning that I have been strong and fought well. There have been times when I have been weak and tired. There have been times when I was victorious, and there have been times when I was distracted and got wounded.
I've been on the battlefield for awhile, under heavy and seemingly constant attacks from the enemy. And today, already weak and limping, this one more thing, the news from this phone call, was too much.
Too much.


On this "too much" day a few months ago I sat on the side of the road in my car and cried out to God with tears pouring, and told him brokenly, angrily, out loud, "God, this feels like too much. It's too much. It's too heavy. I can't take any more. It's too much."
With heartbreaking honesty, I told him it made me mad. I asked him why? Why now? Why more?
I pounded the steering wheel and screamed and railed at him...
I did.
And suddenly I was reminded of someone else who did that. Someone who probably felt like it was too much. A guy who lost pretty much everything in just one day. A guy named Job who reached a point and had a pity party much like I was, but also was a guy who ultimately said of God, "Even if he slay me, I will still trust him."
I sat in that thought for many moments while the tear streaks dried on my face. Could I step into that kind of trust? Did I want to? I felt like I had wasted my time for years trying to be good, trying to follow the rules and do the right things, and live the right way, and I thought life would be easier then. I thought when you do the right things, the wrong things don't happen.
This hard stuff didn't feel fair.
Job probably thought it wasn't fair either. The Bible says he was an "upright" person, which means he was honorable...he did what was right. God knew Job would be okay. He even knew Job would end up better than he was before. He knows the same about us, that He has good plans for us. Still that thought doesn't necessarily make the hard things hurt less. But it does still ask the question...Do I want to trust God like that? Can I?
I really wanted to crawl into a hole and shut the world out, shut the problems out, shut out the responsibilities and just everything. I wanted quiet for my soul. But then I realized what I really wanted, craved, was to fall into the security of safe arms that would hold me with strength and love and never let me down. In my mind's eye, I pictured God's open arms beckoning me, asking me, inviting me...
Did I trust Him? Even when things felt like too much and I didn't understand?
I closed my eyes and leaned slowly over to lie down on the seat. I pictured my head in Jesus' lap and his arms holding me. I felt a soft whisper to my weary soul of, It IS too much for you. But it's not too much for ME. Stop trying to do it on your own. It's mine. You're mine. You CAN'T do it. But I can."


I lie there for long moments. The sadness didn't go away. But the crushing weight of it did.
I admitted to myself that it's moments like this when I really learn what my faith is made of. I thought back to all the ways over my lifetime that God has proven to me that I definitely can trust Him with all of my "too-much" moments. It's never too much for Him. And it's only too much for us when we try to carry it, or fix it, without Him.


He begs us to come lay in His arms. Matthew 11:30 promises us that His yoke is easy and his burden is light because he bears the brunt of it on himself.
When we feel like it's too much, it's because it is. It's not ours to carry.
After all...Jesus carried the weight of the sin of the world. My little burden alone is not hard at all for Him!

The End of a Thing

My eyes opened after a restless night’s sleep and as I stared up into the intruding daylight, my first thought was: tomorrow is the last day of this year. I stuck my tongue out at the ceiling and thought, 2018, I am glad to see you go.

Photo by @sazzleb on Unsplash

My mind immediately flooded itself with all the painful and hard times I had walked through in the last twelve months. Sadness pressed in at the corners of my heart. 

Nothing had gone at all like I had planned or thought this year would go. 

I remembered feeling this same sadness at the end of 2017, and being glad when it was over too and thinking that, because I made it...I survived, that the next year, 2018, would be better and easier. 

And, yet, it wasn’t easier or better.

The sadness invaded and pushed a little deeper and I remembered another tough year in 2015, which had brought challenges and changes and struggles, and how glad I was to ring in 2016 and leave 2015 behind.

Suddenly, I realized I have basically spent the end of every year for at least the last 4 years mourning what I considered as lost instead of celebrating what was gained.

My word of the year from God for 2018 floated in big letters across my mind… 

C H O O S E.

I sat up in bed. 

I felt a shift occurring inside me… the Holy Spirit inviting me into action.

I choose.

I can choose to commiserate, or I can choose to celebrate.

I choose.

I can choose to commiserate the hard things, or I can choose to celebrate how God used the hard things to soften me.

I choose.

I can choose to commiserate prayers not answered my way, or I can celebrate how I heard God speaking to my heart more clearly in this season than I ever have before.

I choose.

I can choose to commiserate what I felt forced to change about myself, or I can celebrate that those yucky not-so-God-like parts of me were sloughed out.

I choose.

I can choose to commiserate the exhaustion and numerous tears, or I can celebrate the new strength I found and the faith that grew. 

I choose.

I physically felt joy come into my spirit and my heart and push all the invading sadness of the pondering thoughts away!

I thought about how the enemy wants to steal so many things from me, from us. And I’ve let him steal my celebratory thoughts for the last several years. 

Yes, 2018 just MAY be one of the hardest years I’ve experienced...so far. But I thought the same thing in prior years. And I’ll probably think the same thing about future years.

Hard doesn’t mean bad. It doesn’t have to, anyway.

There are always victories in the hard places. If it wasn’t hard, we wouldn’t have as much of a reason to celebrate when it’s over. 

When a person runs a marathon and they finish, I doubt they stop at the end and cry and think about how hard it was and how they wish they had never experienced it and how unfair some of the hills and rocky places were. I don’t know for sure because...well, I don’t run! But I imagine, no matter what place they finish in, when they get to the end and cross that line and are gasping for breath and are exhausted and bruised and sore, I bet they look back and smile. 

They made it!

Whether limping across or running full out, they made it! And now they know more what it’s like and what it takes and how to train better. They have experience for the next one. 

I’ve said before that when God placed on my heart my theme verse for 2018, I first freaked out a little. The “end of a thing” sounds ominous! The verse, Ecclesiastes 7:8, says, “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”  I spent several months wondering and worrying about what 2018 might cost me? What would end? That’s pride talking. Pride says it doesn’t want things to end. Pride says it knows better. Pride says it wants what it wants. I didn’t understand the connection between the first and second part of that verse until late in the year…like, super late. Like maybe yesterday?! 

I have a post it on my computer that says, “You can’t fully cast your anxieties on God and keep your pride too.” For one to really end, the other has to end, too.

The end. 

Endings are not bad. 

Actually, endings are never bad when I am truly walking with God. 

Endings just make way for new beginnings. 

Finally, on the next to last morning of 2018, I slid from my bed down onto my knees on the floor and prayed and apologized to God for choosing to let myself commiserate the endings instead of celebrating the finish line, and stepping into the new beginning He has spent the year preparing me for. 

I’m not the same person I was a year ago. 

Some things in me had to go. 

They had to end in order for the new me to begin. 

This has been a process my whole entire life! It’s called maturity. The Bible also calls it “sanctification.” 

I’m not the same person I was 10 years ago, because some things in me had to end back then, too. And I’m glad they did! I’m so glad God didn’t leave me in my 29 year old spiritual and emotional position! Can you imagine? Honestly, it would be like running the same race year after year after year, time after time after time. How boring! No new scenery, no new challenges, no new victories.

God doesn’t want that for me. And He doesn’t want it for you. 

He wants us to look back, and celebrate how far we’ve run, and smile, and then look ahead with excitement and determination for the next race ahead. 

Don’t be deceived though…

There WILL be tough hills, and rocky spots. It will be hard going and exhausting. We may trip and fall sometimes, or get a pebble in our shoe. But we will also get stronger, and faster, and more determined as we realize we never, ever, ever run it alone. 

And it’s exhilarating and empowering to think of each year, not as new hardships to overcome, but as new preparation and conditioning for our next race. I know God used my 2015 to help me maneuver through my 2018. And he’ll use my 2018 to make me stronger for another year. 

There’s hope and some deep love in that. Endings of anything when dropped into God’s hands are always better.

So, I look back on the tough marathon that was 2018, and though it went nothing like what I had thought or planned, I smile. I made it. I learned a lot. I grew a lot. A lot of things ended that needed to end. It was better than my plan.

Now it’s time to turn and look at the 2019 marathon ahead. It’ll bring new challenges, some new hills and valleys, some beautiful scenery and peaceful moments, some chaos and some quiet, some bruises and some stronger muscles. And some more things will likely end, and other things will begin...and it’s better that way.

Isaiah 43:19 “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”