Christian and Annike made a short visit to California to visit his ailing dad. I was left here with two little ones, fighting illness, fighting loneliness, fighting weakness. In all of it, I have been acutely reminded of my humanity. Our own internal strength can only carry us so far.
The year 2016 ended on a low. But, in this season of celebrating the baby birth of God on earth, I saw clearly my desperate need for a Savior who can reach in and heal the illness of body and of spirit. Sometimes He allows us to become broken so that we will allow Him to rebuild us, the way that only the Savior of the world can.
While I love the idea of new beginnings and new years, I find that a clean slate is not nearly as meaningful as the ugly stained mess that will be beautifully incorporated in the new. More than wanting a fresh start, I long for more purpose to come out of the complicated array of experiences we have had this year. The new is more meaningful when it incorporates the old.
This past year has been one of crazy adventures, numerous transitions, rich relationships, first-time experiences, refining fire, purging materialism, cultural diversity, hearing new stories, awakening hearts, laying aside fears, never-ending uncertainty, and the surrender of our plans again and again and again. It was a year of wrestling with loss and celebrating victory at the same time as we flounder for vision in our future. It was a hard year, but a good year. There were many days when pursuing something safe and easy sounded like a better choice than pursuing growth. I will remember this year as a key marker in our family's character timeline. It will, undoubtedly, change the course of who we are.
Despite the adventurous sound of the many places we have visited while we were here, it is actually the amazing people we have met that will leave the biggest impression upon us. We have heard stories from missionaries living in countries all over the world. We have had Muslim men from various parts of Africa sitting across from us at our dining room table. We have been stretched and challenged in our cultural knowledge and our understanding of language barriers. We have sat in the living rooms of strangers and felt like family. And we are absolutely certain that some of these same people will be sitting in our California living room one day as well.
One of our recent highlights took place when the little ones and I were home alone, on the recovery side of our illness, and casting about for something to do indoors. In proper Pioneer Woman tradition, we spent the day baking trays and trays of cinnamon rolls, and decorating New Year cards while we waited for the dough to rise.
Then came the fun part: delivering them. Our delivery list mostly included people who we did not know well. A neighbor. A friend from church. A family of mutual friends. With each delivery, we received so much returned kindness. There was this joy that came overflowing from the surprise at our simple gift. And then the invitations were returned... to stay for dinner, to sit over tea, to join at the zoo, to be a part of life lived, given, and received.
It was a simple act with an extravagant return. Throughout the whole delivery process, which took a few days to complete, I kept thinking: This is what life is meant to be all about.
Nothing can feel richer to me than giving good gifts to strangers and being invited into relationship because of it. It took a few days of nothing to do, after a month of being isolated, piled onto the end of 6 months as a stranger in a foreign country for us to do it. Yet, at the end of it, I can see clearly that this will be my greatest calling and challenge for this coming year...
To love big in little ways.
To love next door and across the street. Wherever that street happens to be.
To love the unsuspecting, without recognition or fame or reciprocation.
To love local.
And so, my word for this year is "LOCAL"...
Wherever I am, it isn't an accident. All of those gifts and talents and pieces of me that keep me up at night wondering if I am throwing them away, are meant to be used right here where I am. Locally. There are a million small ways to show big love.
2016 was a year of being stripped down to our very basics. 2017 will be a year of being built back up in the simplest and most Biblical ways. How is God challenging you to love better this year?
| With the flamingos in a snowstorm. |
“Every day God invites us on the same kind of adventure. It's not a trip where He sends us a rigid itinerary, He simply invites us. God asks what it is He's made us to love, what it is that captures our attention, what feeds that deep indescribable need of our souls to experience the richness of the world He made. And then, leaning over us, He whispers, "Let's go do that together.” "
- Bob Goff (author of "Love Does")
