I always feel a keen sense of sorrow when my family removes our Christmas decorations, puts our Nativity scene away in storage, and drags our tree out to the curb. Certainly I try, as Charles Dickens bids us, “to keep Christmas in my heart all the year long,” but the visible signs of this celebratory time do pass away from our environments.
And what are these signs replaced by? In my family home, we simplify—matching the bleakness of the natural world. Where there once was a Nativity scene on the mantle, my mother places a single white orchid. She exchanges our festive tablecloth for a white one. The simplicity of the atmosphere invites one to fill it, not with material possessions, but with our longings, dreams, and hopes for the future. This is fitting for a season imbued with New Year’s resolutions.
But what happens when we feel that our tenderest longings are yet to be fulfilled, or indeed, may never come to pass at all—when we who once were walking what felt like a very straight or direct path end up wandering in the desert in a most circuitous fashion? When we feel more like Abraham and Sarah wondering in disbelief whether God would fulfill His promise than of Mary, young, resilient, and expectant with new life?
I have felt this way for some time since my life circumstances shifted a few years ago. In my young adulthood, I felt convinced that I was living out my vocation. Then, suddenly, I lost my profession, ability to drive, live independently, and a blossoming romantic partnership. I had no choice but to return to my home of origin because of an illness most felt baffled by and surely no one understood.
And this feeling, these doubts, always hit me in the calm of a new year. Surrounded by the voices of others, the resolute promises to return to the gym, read more, and invest more, the loudest voice I hear is the one that proclaims, “I am not enough.”
As a pained protagonist cries in the musical Finding Neverland, a play cherished by my niece and me, “So what’s the point of planning for a future when it all can be stolen away?” A few years after this difficult occurrence, I am learning to grieve the life I lost. Still, every new year, this sorrow strikes me afresh. It is easy, comforting even, to fade into anonymity amongst the proclaimed hopes of others. And it is tempting to rest in the solitude of a quiet month instead of interacting with all those uncomfortable feelings.
This past year, though, became markedly distinct for me. A dear friend sent me a song at a late hour, not quite knowing that I would be awake attempting to quiet all the unfulfilled desires I strive to bury. The song was, “The Detour,” by Christian singer and songwriter Sarah Kroger. It offered a language for experiences I once regarded as isolating, not simply by its lyrics but by its voice: “Don’t let my heart grow cold or despise the wait.” And oh—how I had come to loathe the wait. Asking if the wait was actually an end, Sarah Kroger answers: “I will trust the detour is the road.” “I am full of doubt”—Check, Sarah—“But You are kind and close.”
But I felt so alone. I’m still learning what it means to invite God into this space of loneliness, though I somehow now trust that He’s already permeating it. The lyrics speak confidence and boldness into difficult places, but as another friend pointed out, “She’s singing these words until she believes them. She doesn’t seem to accept them fully yet.” In other words, she longs for the truth captured in these lyrics and still feels encumbered by doubt. And far more than accepting Sarah Kroger’s words as declarations, I began to ponder them as questions. I didn’t want to stifle these inquiries, but, instead, wanted to seek answers for them. Perhaps the desire for answers was my first hope in this area of my life that felt so barren.
Are there others that feel as I do? Do they experience alienation or isolation as I do? What makes us “safe to hope” then? How do we navigate our lives when the road is so far from clear, direct or straightforward? How do I describe or place into words a feeling that is so often elusive? Are there any words of kindness or compassion that I could offer someone who feels like me?
These ponderings compelled me to resist my most natural inclinations this year. Rather than remaining alone in my solitude, away from the crowd of those with more hope for the coming year, I made a different choice. I climbed uphill a little bit instead of sitting in comfort with the familiar voice of self-doubt.
I reached out to women I love. These women had already demonstrated the seriousness and depth of their own spiritual inquiries. They had each invited me into one of their internal struggles at some point in the past year. And these individuals had a dependability that I had learned to trust. I invited them to ask and discern these questions in conversation and prayer by my family’s fireplace. To my joyful surprise, my invitation was met with warmth, openness, and receptivity of spirit.
I prepared for the gathering by reading stories of young women who had encountered rejection and misunderstanding, women like St. Thérèse of Lisieux and St. Bernadette of Lourdes. I meditated on different Scriptural images of women who waited and longed for an answer to their prayers, often in isolation, like Hannah in the Old Testament and the woman with the issue of blood in the Gospels. I even returned to The Chronicles of Narnia, and Aslan’s words, whispered to Lucy amidst a storm: “Courage, dear heart.” I like to say that I planned a women’s retreat “for women and about women,” as a woman myself—its creator.
It was the women who attended, though, that filled the space I had provided—the rooms of my family’s home, the pages of the journals that I had given them, and filled my imagination with increasing wonder and awe. Hearing their voices grappling with so many of the questions that I had left silent in the confines of my own heart, gave me another source of hope.
What moved me most were the voices of those in positions that I confess I have envied. They had job promotions while I was left unable to work. They had engagement proposals while I lacked such intimacy. To hear of their triumphs did bring me sincere joy, but it also filled my heart with a sorrow for what might have been.
It is usually a struggle for me to acknowledge these feelings—even in the privacy of my own heart. I want to pursue a joy left unhindered, uncomplicated by my personal struggles. But in the light of fellowship and friendship, I was able to do what I did not expect. I found a name for these feelings and spoke them aloud. I was surprised to have my uttered words received with unconditional love. I even learned of sadnesses carried by others that I never perceived or beheld.
God’s Love is inexhaustible. What a delight it will be to revel in Him and His creation when we see in full what we once could only in part. In this life, however, every good is finite, every “Yes” is a thousand unspoken “Nos” to other plans, different vocations, and, ultimately, to other goods.
What I never accounted for was that, for the women journeying beside me, each opportunity they accepted produced both joy and sadness. They grieved freely the loss of other opportunities, while also acknowledging how wonderful their assent to a particular life path was. Their honesty was a profound reminder that it is imperative to hold the “both/and.” Their acknowledgement of sadness forced me to consider whether there was something beautiful, even hopeful about my state in life, even my illness, that I had overlooked. What if God can use the blank canvas of my future for something good? What if my openness is something God longs to create from? And this question filled me with another hope.
Hope is greater than a wish. It is not something one keeps in the privacy of one’s own heart, however much easier such safeguarding appears to be. It is, by nature, resistant. It asks much of its holder, more than I ever imagined. It asks us to move forward when the temptation is to slink back or away, to bring name and language to all we experience in the human heart, and to do so not as independent agents, but as a family of believers who in some form or another long for the fulfillment of promise. While hope asks much of us, its beginnings can be small—one small seed, one prayer, one question, one invitation, one gathering of beloved others. What and how do you want to hope in this New Year?
