Complicated Hope

If December is the month of bright joy and February the month of deep passion then January is the dark night of winter.

For 18 years, January has meant our greatest struggles as a family – from medical emergencies to personal spiritual attacks.

I hate January.

Several years ago,  numerous ministries began asking their people to take a 21-day fast during January.  There were some trendy reasons and trendy diets that faded but the practice stuck with many churches and individuals.
Me included.

There’s been food fasts, media fasts and Diet Coke fasts – and honestly every single one of them has been hard and painful.

Okay, maybe I just greatly dislike the discomfort that January brings.

In this current season of fasting, God has brought me to deal with two things – loneliness and the pain of grief.

Two things that for various legitimate reasons I’ve had to push to the back burner and forge ahead.
Since the Big Move, I’ve made a friend or two but they have their families and businesses and babysitting a needy middle-aged woman was not in their life plan.

But it was in God’s plan.

Time and again this month He has called me to embrace the alone time and be with Him. To find again the things I like to do in reading and crafts and music.

God has also led me through some emotional moments too.

Like today, when driving by a jewelry store whose name brought about great grief.  “Celine’s Jewelry” – Ashley’s best friend was Celine. She is heaven now. And we miss her.  But just the sound of her name took me to that Sunday morning, kneeling on the ground with her sister-in-love as I struggled to comprehend how our Celine had died.

Instead of switching to another scene in my mind, I let myself replay the confusion and the moments as I gathered our dear friends around us. The ticking time of telling Ashley that her friend, who had just minutes earlier texted her “I love you,” was now with Jesus.

I let myself feel the pain. To go through it.  To grieve our loss once again.  To drive with tears in my eyes.

Why do we run from grief? Why is there such a stigma with being alone?

Fear.

We fear grief and the pain it brings.  We want life to be rainbows and forget that first comes the storm.

We fear being alone and the intimacy with ourself that it brings so we fill the silence with television as radio and noise.

Frank Herbert wrote in Dune, “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

I will not fear grief. It reminds how precious is the joy life holds.  I will not fear tears because they wash away the grime of regret.

I will not fear being alone because in the quiet God fills the space around me with himself.

What is God calling you to walk-through today but fear is keeping you from answering His call?  Are you afraid to be well because it’s become so easy to be sick?  Are you afraid to admit failure  because you fear it’s consequences?  Do you fear apologizing because you fear rejection?

“Lord let us not be so afraid of the pain of life that we fail to recognize the healing of your love.”