2022: My Re-View

 2022 turned out to be the reset I didn't know I needed. 

At the beginning, all I knew is God promised me that this was the year of restoration. All I knew was I needed to regroup, re-evaluate. I entered the new year just hoping for some clarity... because I came into it carrying some heavy baggage. An incident the previous summer had upended my soul, and I found myself questioning everything... and also sadly, everyone. 

For months, I had struggled to come to terms with a lifetime's worth of lies and decades worth of un-love that all seemed to have come to a head in one conversation: a few minutes of hurtful speak that suddenly had me staring at the mirror one winter day and admitting to myself that I didn't honestly know who I was anymore. Oh, I knew the person everybody else wanted me to be or tried to force me to be, but the me that was unequivocally real? The me I'd always been at my core? The me who never thought in the box ever? The me who saw the world through eyes unique to who God made me? Yeah... that me seemed to have been long lost in the past. Left on a corner somewhere, never to be found again. 

I realized that, for most of my life, I had lived under the false assumption that everyone else is 100% correct on everything all the time - that regardless of what I thought or how I felt at any point, deffering to their opinion was what it meant to love... even if it meant I went against my own comfort, intuition, or personal non-negotiables. As long as everyone was happy or pleased with me, I felt accepted. And so, for years upon years, I bent over backwards and kept on trying to keep the peace - by going along just to get along - and now, thanks to the last straw that broke the proverbial camel's back, I had to admit that I had completely let go of who I innately was. This one, final bit of pressure to change myself just to satisfy another, pushed me over the edge. 

And so I asked God to show me what needed to change. Was it me? Was it them? Was it my way of life? Was it my values? I didn't care what adjustments had to be made - I just wanted to heal... find peace... 

Peace with myself...

Peace with others...

Peace with God. 

Sometimes when you're at the limit of what you can humanly take, you're forced to alter how you do things. Out of necessity, you start asking questions and making tweaks because you know your very life, your very health depends on it. Keep going as you are, and something inside of you will die. 

What I didn't know was that asking these things would open up a Pandora's Box of sorts that would bring back multiple painful things. It's surprising sometimes how, when we open ourselves to God's healing cure, the way to what we seek most is through harsh memories or experiences we didn't even know we were still carrying. Burdens we'd refused to shed. Relationships we'd resisted making peace with. Forgiveness we'd withheld giving. Yet, unless these things take place, and we invite God's touch into the deepest part of our being, we will never move toward the wholeness we most need. We won't see the growth we most want. 

The answers that came to me were both surprising and satisfying: surprising because there were so many things I failed to see that I'd swept under the rug and claimed "didn't bother me" at the time that, in reality, had wounded me deeply and continued to build layers in my life. Layers that protected me but also made it incredibly hard for me to feel loved, appreciated, free. But the satisfaction lay in that almost instantly, upon finally naming the un-named things, I felt liberated. Released. Like a caged bird that had been let out and told it could fly. 

And that's when it all became clear to me: our best life is often limited in the ways in which we've been told (or told ourselves) that we're not allowed. Not allowed to create and adventure and try and fail and succeed and imagine and dream and hope and love. Not allowed to put our own special twist on things. Not allowed to have a figurative seat at the table where our insights and our voice matters and is welcomed. And so we learn to be silent. After all, it's better than causing an unnecessary storm. 

But what people of note ever did their greatest work by sitting on the sidelines and settling for status quo? Weren't those who did anything of value the ones who challenged average and took some criticism for it? Weren't they brave souls that were willing to go where others were too timid to in order to do God's will? 

All throughout this year, as I began to clarify who I am at my core, as I began to ask myself what I really want, as I began to live by the premise (for the first time in my life) that I am not only allowed but I am invited to this grand journey called life, where joy and love and life await me instead of merely struggling to survive - where the voice of God and the chosen voices of healthy influence in my life help me find the way instead of confusion and disruption and control and manipulation and criticism - as I started to see and feel what it's like to experience that every day, things started to change. I took steps to start guarding my personal boundaries better, to speak up for myself when others tried to change who I innately am. To even go so far as to walk away when my influence or my personal benefit has been compromised or has run out. To admit when something has run its course or outlived its season and then to end it well, in favor of a fresh beginning. 

Implementing these things was hard, without a doubt. It meant having some tough conversations and letting go of some meaningful chapters. It meant stepping back for a time and re-evaluating how I did everything so I could ensure that my energy and my impact were used in the right places going forward and so I could operate in the future from the best of me instead of the leftovers. So I could embrace myself and even like myself as a beloved, created individual who has been designed in the image of God. 

Looking back, as this year draws to a close, I can confidently say that 2022 was a year in re-view. A year where I took a personal journey back further than I ever had, unearthing vision along the way. A year where I dared to get in touch with my real personhood and to accept the reality that I belong. I learned how to hold on and how to let go. I started to see who my true allies in life are and who is simply out to change me or to suck the life out of me. I figured out my long-term why and what it exactly is that forever drives me to live and choose as I do. And I watched as space I cleared internally allowed for other better things to fill the place. In short, 2022 will be a year I look back on a pivotal. Re-directional. 

As we approach a new year and people make their "resolutions" and we all hope and pray in expectation of a fresh start, perhaps we'd do well to take stock of what we want to release in 2023. Maybe, like me, you too are carrying burdens from the past you don't know you still bear - burdens that are weighing you down and preventing you from reaching your fullest, God-given potential. In order to move ahead, perhaps there are some un-named things that you would do well to acknowledge. 

Coming to terms with the unspoken pain of your past is never easy and sometimes, it feels like reliving the trauma all over again in order to make peace with it in the healthiest way. May I just encourage you to not be afraid? To ask God for courage to turn your precious face into that inner darkness and take the steps you need to in order to discover the wholeness you most need? After all, we're only on this planet for one go of it, and it's a pity that so many of us waste valuable time holding onto things we should've let go of and made peace with long ago. 

Each year we're still here, God gives us the gift of more time - more chances and opportunities to discover the fullness of the abundant life He offers. More experiences to get it right and try again. The fact that you're still breathing means He's not done with you yet. He hasn't given up on your potential and purpose, and neither should you. 

So let us welcome 2023 with open arms and see it as an invitation to deeper healing, greater learning, better growing. Let us thank the Lord for this, another season in which we can take our place in the dance of life and put our own sparkle in it as God intended. And let us also thank God for the hard times that brought us here so we could use our journeys as inspiration for all the life that lies ahead.