Tough Year - New Year

“Pastor Eric, I am so ready to say goodbye to 2012.  It’s been such a hard, painful year.  I am ready to say hello to a new year,” a church member told me recently during a hospital visit. 

I understood her statement.  Her year has been filled with hospital stays, death, grief, pain, sorry, fear, and anxiety.  The New Year provided a symbol of turning the page on a year of chaos with hopes for a new page of quiet and healing.

Everyone experiences years of heartache or struggle at some point in their life.  During these years, time seems to pass slower, normal gets pushed aside for the urgent, and we wonder if there will ever be at the end to the tunnel.  The turning of the New Year provides a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel, whether it’s truly the end or not.    

On December 31, 2004, my dad was dying of kidney cancer.  Four, long difficult months had passed since his wretched diagnosis.  These days had been full of tear filled doctor’s visits, failing health, gut checking decisions, and slow acceptance.  While I said goodbye to one year of pain and suffering, I knew I was saying hello to a year my dad would die.  Still, the New Year brought God’s gift of hope even into this circumstance.  It would be a difficult year, yet the New Year reminded me of God’s presence.

One of my favorite types of prayers is called the Prayer of Examen (Examine).  This prayer invites us to review each day with an awareness of God’s presence throughout the day.  When I take time to prayerfully review my days, I am always reminded of the ways God moved – through a chance encounter, a scripture I read, or through a phone call. 

When we practice the prayer of examen at the end of the year, we have the opportunity to look at the larger movements of God in our lives during the year.  To loosely quote a familiar poem/song – we get a chance to look back on the footprints of our lives and to find not only where God has been walking with us, but also where God has been carrying us. 

If you happen to be ending one of those tougher years of your life, it may still be too early to see all the ways God has been walking with you over the year.  However, I am certain, when time provides perspective, that year you once prayed to finally be over, might just be the year God moved the most in your life.  That is my prayer for you on this New Year!  Happy New Year!  Amen.