When You Can't Tie Up the Year with a Bow
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It’s the time of year that many people look back on the year that is drawing to a close and highlight all the good or say “good riddance” and wish for a better year to come. I’ve thought often about what this year means to me in retrospect. It was certainly an “ebenezer” year, and I wish I had an actual stone to put somewhere in remembrance. It was a year I saw a true miracle: God spared my husband’s life when he had, at best, a 2% chance of survival. It was incredible, undeniable and I will never be the same or stop being grateful that we can all still be together as a family. But we can’t tie up our story with a nice bow. We can’t say “God saved Jonathan and this is why.” I can’t negate the dark valley I walked through afterwards or the fact that Jonathan still lives with a medical condition that gives him pain and hinders normal activity. He still can’t run around in the yard with our kids and he’s not back to 100%. The discouragement and limitations that continual nagging pain causes is hard for us both, especially because it looks like there may not be any resolution on the horizon apart from another miracle of God.
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Since I am teaching both my older girls and younger boys, I’ve tried to teach the boys to ask, “Whats’s next, Mommy?” after they finish a project. I need to help them learn not to run off the minute I go help the girls. I’d say they remember 50% of the time. The other 50% they run off and make a mess somewhere in the house, and I have to go find them and show them what’s next.
Spiritually, I’m a lot like my little boys. As I’ve been teaching them to say, “What’s next, Mommy?” throughout the day, He’s been teaching me to ask, “What’s next, Father?” too.