As we carefully tiptoe into 2021 with bated breath, I was a little bit leery to do too much goal-setting and intention planning for fear I might jinx something. We'll cover that fear thing below. ;) And let's be real, the turning of the calendar to January didn't just magically erase the fact that we are still living in unknown territory knowing what to expect this year. But isn't that always the case? We can set goals, we can make plans, but at the end of the day there are some things we can control and some things we just can't. I guess that's where my thoughts started late December as I vigorously wrote in my journal. As I wrote about the year that was, the lessons learned and the memories made, I started to connect some dots about who God has wired me to be, what oftentimes gets in the way of that wiring, and the ways I can better center my thinking and being in ways that help me live out my calling well.
I used to think finding one's calling was attached to a particular profession, passion, or bigger purpose of doing good in the world. And while I do believe this is the case for some, more often than not I think we make it too big. I will never forget the words of a much wiser woman in my basement during a Bible study as she listened to all us thirty-somethings drawl on about discovering our perfect life's purpose. She said that as she looks back at her life, she's able to see God's purpose unfold in her everyday obedience. And I remember feeling a collective exhale in the room. What if life is about simply living your days in ways that honor God? The best days, the worst days, and all those days in between. And a whole lot of single days with good intentions, a positive spirit, and a posture to see others well would add up to a pretty great life, wouldn't it? So rather than getting caught up in the long-term, my position for a 2021 vision landed in the daily intentions of how I hope to live out my days. And it felt like a good year to reclaim my year to DELIGHT.
When I look at my favorite days of the past year, or really my whole life, they are the days filled with JOY. Whether spontaneous or created, they are the days when I feel like I can stand outside my skin, look in, and feel a sense of awe and wonder. The days I'm walking through a snowfall at Hartman and pause to look up to the sky and simply drink in the cold flakes falling on my nose. The days I saw the lightbulbs go off as the kids figured out something brand new during our stint of home-school. Folding a friend's laundry, dropping off a meal, feeling someone's entire being soften after receiving a genuine compliment that sinks in deep. Watching the kids' faces light up on Christmas morning, or next to the glow of their candle on Christmas eve. Creating Mila's birthday video of her as a baby and feeling such joy it hurts. All these feelings - the mountaintop moments standing in awe of something beautiful, the joy that comes from stepping in to someone's life in deep and meaningful ways, and feeling love so deep it could literally break your heart are gifts from God that we get to unwrap everyday. Gifts that give us a glimpse into who he is.
There was a collective narrative all of last year about how it was the worst year in history, our country was a big dumpster fire, nothing was going right, and everything was terrible. I saw the tweets, read the memes, and was rarely left with anything positive from any of it. Meanwhile, the joy and unexpected gifts I pulled out from that dumpster fire left me wondering if I was naïve, ignorant, or just shielded from the mess. And while much of that is in fact true because of certain privileges I have, I'm also not immune to pain and feeling true empathy for others' pain. God gave me a healthy dose of empathy and emotion and sometimes I can spiral into feelings of sadness, anxiety, and fear. That's why it made so much sense when in my last book of the year, Get Out of Your Head, Jennie Allen explained that the opposite of delight is cynicism, and cynicism is almost always driven by fear.
"Either we're afraid of something that might not ever occur, or we project something that has occurred onto all the days that are to come. We buy into the life that it's too risky to be vulnerable or hope for good things."
Thanks to reading lots of Brene Brown at the beginning of last year, I can now say I am a chronic sufferer of what she calls "foreboding joy." Yep, that's me. I plan for the worst, am prone to focus on the lack, I overthink and over-analyze until I think I'm going crazy, and let fear steal away moments of joy. And what I didn't realize before is that I think I'm prone to fear because God has wired me toward joy. The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy and I believe he goes for the places God has equipped us the most. And for me, and maybe for a good part of our country this past year, his strategy has been to flood our thoughts with visions of all that is wrong in this world to the point we don't even think to look for the positive anymore.
"Cynicism is destroying our ability to delight in the world around us and fully engage with others. God has an abundance of joy and delight for us, and we're missing it with arms crossed. What if there was another way to live?"
"Beauty interrupts us, it awakens us, it undoes us, it cuts us open, and restarts our hearts. Beauty is God's evidence of something far more wonderful coming, a world beyond the one we can imagine, even in the most spectacular moments here. A God better than what we hope for. A God who blows our minds."
So my vision for 2021 is to delight...
-to DELIGHT in God's presence. To see him is to see beauty, therefore, I must create a life that allows me to actually see him. To reinvest in rest and sabbath, keeping in step with many of the slower routines we were gifted in 2020. To stop hustling toward achievement and be still. To pause in his goodness and give him my worship - whether at church, in nature, or around the table with people I love.
-to DELIGHT in just who He's made us to be. To see the gifts in my kids and nurture the heck out of them. To affirm and support the amazing man my husband is. And to continue to step into the perfectly imperfect soul that I am.
-to DELIGHT in his goodness and train my attention to see it everyday. To continue to invest in adventures near and far. To read poetry and write about the big and small things bringing me delight. To practice healthy habits and find great delight in caring for my body, heart, and mind.
-to DELIGHT in this new shifting season of growing kids. There's grief in saying goodbye to the past decade of so much joy, and some fear in crossing unknown territory of what it looks like to be a mom in this next decade. But I want to delight in new space and opportunity, and new ways to parent well.
-to DELIGHT in stepping into the lives of others. If we follow the life of Jesus, it's clear that his true joy came in investing really well in the people around him. I want to weave people into our life in ways that are natural and meaningful.
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