I think I do more reflecting than the average 24 year old, so doing a “year in review” feels gratuitous, but I can be as creative as a wet sponge some days, and taking time to review a full 12 months at minimum gives fodder for future biographers.
Clandestinely, 2022 was the year I seriously questioned whether following Jesus was worth it. Maybe I didn’t use as frank of language, but all that this year had in store for me made me question whether God actually cared about me, or if all I was in his “perfect plan” was a pawn put in the line of fire so that others can learn lessons from my gunshots and admire the scars on my back.
I spent months in a jacobian wrestle with God as I begged, kicked, screamed that he bless me, because hadn’t I gone through enough? Couldn’t I rest? Couldn’t I ask for something and receive it? Didn’t I deserve love?
I had convinced myself of a God who does not care about my happiness so long as some amorphous, distant “good” and “glory” came eventually. It wasn’t that I thought God was bad or malicious. No, if this was a God who could create sunrises and mountains, then I can certainly trust that he makes good and beautiful things. But at the end of the day, I just am not as important as whatever goal he’s trying to reach. When push came to shove, my wants, needs, and desires were secondary to others.
There are some people who always seem to be going through something, and I was tired of that person being me. The optimism and sense of wonder I had worked for years to cultivate and protect waned to cynicism, and I fortified every wall and buttressed every pillar that kept me and my baggage safe. If even God was disappointing me, then how much more would others if I let them anywhere near this broken, scared, weak small girl that I, in all my degrees and races and accolades, am trying to protect? She is tired and terrified, and though she is little, she knows these are the cards she’s dealt, and forward is the only direction she knows.
Goodness gracious, I fought to protect her. Maybe someone with more faith than I could have just taken the punches—even considered them pure joy! After all, the testing of our faith produces perseverance, and perseverance must run its full course, right? Good Christians just sit and take it and thank God for all the hardship they have to endure, because it brings them closer to Jesus; they count it all—their health, their relationships, their careers and goals and dreams—as loss.
But I am not that spiritual. I am not that faithful. In fact, I traded my spirituality for spite and my faith for fear. I woke up praying for something to give and went to bed crying that this was enough.
I write these blog posts selfishly for myself. If I’m honest with myself, it’s not only to take inventory of my thoughts and emotions and to put the jumbled up ball of yarn in my head into some sort of meaningful pattern. With each meandering sentence and eloquently found adjective, I can paint an artfully abstract picture of my life and replace the rubble of living with interesting syntax. It’s a selfish and eye-catching pursuit to once again be open but not vulnerable and to carefully frame the exact version of myself I want you, the reader, to see, and for me, the writer, to put on and make believe for a bit. Maybe this protagonist just needs to journey on and her story will eventually work out. Cathartic—sure. Performative vulnerability—most definitely.
My dad shared once that a broken spirit and an open heart are necessary prerequisites for freedom and in finding direction. But God, I don’t know how much fight I have left in me. Can’t I stop moving for a bit? Can’t I find love and peace? Can’t I rest and feel safe?
I could say my new year’s resolution is to tear down my walls a little and let people in. But between you and me, my resolution is the opposite.