2015, baby.

On January 1, 2015, I posted this on Facebook:

And just like that 2015 is here with all its glory and pain and love and potential.

And there was so much of that – all of that. 2015 was a good year. Don’t read easy when all I said was good. It wasn’t easy. There were lessons and tears, but also laughing until I cried. There were long conversations and big celebrations (I mean, we actually pulled off a surprise party this year!). Engagements and weddings and funerals. Beginnings and endings. “What am I supposed to do? Why did that have to happen?” and “Ohmygosh, I’m so glad that happened!”

Toward the end of the year, Facebook starts pushing their Year in Review on your news feed and over the last few days #2015bestnine is making the rounds on Instagram. I don’t know how Facebook chooses from all of the things you posted throughout year, maybe it's the posts that received the most likes, but looking through mine made me smile. There was a picture from a birthday party, and a wedding in Colorado. There was one of my tiny new nephew and another of me and my friends at a lake last summer. It’s fun to look through your year and remember that thing you did in February that you had all but forgotten – like I went snowboarding in Breckenridge, but wait, was that really this year because it feels like forever ago. Time has a way of doing that – speeding by and suddenly those things you were looking forward to for so long, talking about, planning, praying about or crying about are just months-old memories and a couple of photos to make you feel nostalgic later.

Something you can do with that Year in Review is share it on your timeline. Don’t get me wrong, I love this idea. But it has the potential to force comparison and sadness when you watch your friends’ highlight reel – all of their glory moments from 2015. Like it’s one thing to see those moments posted one at a time throughout the year – that vacation in Mexico, that family dinner out, that new thing they bought – but when it’s all of those things in one long succession like, “Hey, can you please enjoy this with me all over again and remember all the great things I did this year because they were pretty great, right?” Of course it’s pulling all the great things, the reasons we celebrated and laughed and had a good time because those are the things we post on Facebook in the first place. We share our joys on social media, as we should. Celebrations and joy are best when shared. I love it when people find something they’re passionate about, something that brings them joy, and you see that light in their eyes. Isn’t that just the sweetest thing – seeing the thing that lights someone up?

But, you know what doesn’t get put up there on Facebook – the things your Year in Review doesn’t contain? The days that you cried in your car on the way home. The days you were disappointed and hurt. The days you felt worthless and forgotten. The day you found out you were sick. The day you received the rejection letter in the mail or the day you ended that relationship. This isn’t a post about the pitfalls of social media, but it is a reminder that while it might show our glory and love, it doesn’t always show our pain. And often our pain points are where we spend the most time learning and growing and becoming throughout the year. So, when I say my year was good, don’t just think of my highlight reel and think it’s all perfect. Because I didn’t post the day I cried about not getting the teaching job I thought I wanted. Or the day I got in a fight with my sister and the phone call and apology that followed. 

All that to say, I do love a good Year in Review reminder. I love to look back through my journals on this date last year – two, five, seven years ago – to see where my heart was, what was filling my head and taking up my time. I’m not trying to live in the past, but I think it’s good to know where you were so you can decide where you want to go because in just one more day 2015 will be over forever as time screams ever forward. Soon it will be the stuff we read about as history. The year I _______. The year when _______. Looking back on the year, I think the truest thing I can say about it is that I have been given much. I have socks on my feet and Jesus in my heart and I am grateful.

Looking ahead to 2016, I don’t know what it will contain. I don't know what to expect in this new set of days. Some people already know – they’re having a baby or they’re getting married or they’re starting a new job. Maybe they’re going on an adventure. I know of one or two things 2016 holds for me, but aside from that, it’s wide open. It contains so much potential, and isn’t that exciting and also maybe kind of scary? Where might you be led in the next 365 days? Who are you going to meet and where will those meetings lead you? What if 2016 is a year all your dreams come true? Or what if everything crashes around you? What if there’s more pain than glory? Oh, but what if there’s more love than you could have ever imagined?

For the last couple of years, I have picked a new word to focus on for the year. Last year my word was kindness. I put the word on the home screen of my phone so that I would see it every single day. The goal was to be marked with kindness above everything else. Since the world can be so heavy and cynical, I wanted to only add to it in ways that were kind and gentle. While I still want those things for 2016, my word for this year is abide. It means to stick to, stand by, keep to.  To remain. I have a lot of thoughts on the whole idea of staying, but that’s for another time. In 2016 I want to abide - in love, in friendships/relationships, in God. I want to be humble – always recognizing that we’re all still in progress and we have not yet arrived. I want to be present. Set boundaries. Learn to be slow and listen. I want to focus on and celebrate other people’s strengths rather than become an expert in their weaknesses. I want to be grateful and thankful and savor the important things. I don’t want to do anything that I would be ashamed of doing if it were my last hour – that’s a quote by someone. I can’t claim it, but I want to live it. Cram it into the corners of my heart. Let go of that last 10% of my life that I’ve been hanging on to and not allowing God to touch. In this next year, what I want the most is to keep looking for ways to give it away – all of it – my time, talents, treasure, love. And even if the pain outweighs the glory in 2016, I want to be able to come to this day a year from now and say that it was good. 

Do not be afraid.

We’re less than one day away from Christmas. Just a few hours away from stopping to celebrate a holiday that, if you look at the headlines saying Christianity is declining, and more and more people are identifying as “nones” when it comes to religious beliefs, it’s a holiday celebrating something we’re not even sure of anymore – maybe we never were. We know that we’re all rushing around shopping and planning and decorating and waiting for that one single day where it will all come together. We feel the anticipation of that day coming and we’re filled with hope. But why?

My brother-in-law loves the holidays. He started playing Christmas music the day after Halloween and it was full on merry and bright at their house long before Thanksgiving. For some reason, I have never really loved Christmas music. A lot of the songs are slow and no one is meeting me under mistletoe and also, who even roasts chestnuts? Don’t those things come pre-roasted at Trader Joe’s? But, this year the words of Christmas carols have really stayed with me. I’m not sure why, but I think it’s because it feels like the world is smoldering with a new outrage every day and our days are screaming by, blurring from one to the next. I mean, how did we get to the end of 2015 already? Fall seems to speed by faster than any other season and then it’s the end of daylight savings time and we’ve begun the slow decent into darkness where 5 PM feels like midnight and it’s so cold we all unconsciously (or consciously) start to hibernate like animals. It’s about now when my self-diagnosed Seasonal Affective Disorder is kicking into high gear so “Oh, Come All Ye Faithful” isn’t really the jam I want to blast on the way home from work.

But I’m listening to Christmas music this year and really dialing in on some of the words and the predominant feeling I have is that we’re not ready. We’re not ready for Christmas this year because we’re scrambling – the world is spinning chaos and there’s always something wrong and if it’s not one thing it’s another. It’s like we’ll all be running into Christmas morning with our hair on fire but then look at it and say, “Oh this? It's nothing,” and pretend that everything is fine for this one day of the year. Like getting in a family fight in the car, full on shouting match, then arriving at the destination and being all smiles and gladness and “How are you?” “I’m fine. I’m great.” That’s what the holiday feels like this year.

A weary world rejoices. We’re weary, that’s certain. We’ve got the weary thing down. We’re running from one thing to the next and if we’re not worried, the news will tell us what to worry about – ISIS and refugees, presidential candidates and a lion in Zimbabwe, shootings and racial unrest. We have a lot we could fill our heads with every single day. We could bite our nails down to the cuticle if we really wallow in all the ways the world is a weary place. But are we rejoicing? Do we even know how or what to rejoice over anymore?

All is calm, all is bright. Bright by the light of mortar fire in Iraq and Syria. Gunfire in Paris and San Bernardino. Bright by the glow of smartphones illuminating our faces as we shove our noses into Twitter and Snapchat. Bright by Instagram ads and TV commercials shouting at us about the next thing we “need”. But does anyone here feel calm? Do we stop running long enough to let the calm settle in or are we sitting in the Christmas Eve church service thinking about the potatoes in the oven and if that last present got wrapped? Who has time for calm when we’ve got bright lights pulling us in every direction?

Let earth receive her King. Oh, we’ve received our king. We have no problem with that. We receive him every day when we wake up in the morning and look in the mirror. The problem is getting everyone else to receive him because no one else seems to see that we’re worthy of worship. In a culture where self and feelings trump others and reason, we keep trying to put ourselves on the throne and the rub comes when no one else realizes how important we are. Rude. So we’re exalting ourselves, our power, our money, only to find the king of self is a heavy-handed ruler.

My soul is thirsty for calm and another kind of bright. I could use some rejoicing and I would very much like to have myself a merry little Christmas. But how do we get there? How do we set down the trials and discontent long enough to let the hope and promise of this holiday seep into our bones?

You can downgrade Christmas to simply Santa and presents. You can even skip the church service, especially if you don’t know why you’re going anyway. But for 2,000 years there has only been one real reason we gather on December 25. Around the world on December 25, people will pause and with a deep-seated hope in their guts, they will know that there’s a bigger meaning than gifts and bingo, trees and tinsel and a blow-up snowman in the front yard.

Last year on Christmas Eve, I attended this time of reflection on the meaning of Christmas. It was a practice of Lectio Divina and while we held restorative yoga poses, in the calm and quiet of a small studio as it snowed outside, we listened to the Christmas story – of a virgin and a baby, donkeys and innkeepers, shepherds and angels.

An angel appeared to Mary and said, “Do not be afraid.” He was about to bestow upon her the greatest task the world has ever known – giving birth to the One who created the entire idea of being born, cradling the One who cradles the very stars. How frightening must that have been? Joseph later heard the same message, “Do not be afraid.” And the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks? “Do not be afraid.”

But I think the message of that day is the same message we need today. In light of every new headline – do not be afraid. In light of each new wave of tragedy – do not be afraid. In light of that family grievance, that task that seems insurmountable, the thing that weighs so heavy on your heart in these very moments – do not be afraid. It’s not a suggestion. He didn’t say, “Good luck” or “You’re right. This is terrifying.”

Do not be afraid.

I think we’re all running a little scared. I know I am sometimes. Scared of what may or may not happen – dreams that may or may not come. Scared of what will happen if ____. Scared of what new thing the world is going to throw at us. Maybe it doesn’t even register in our minds as fear, but that’s one of our most basic driving emotions. That’s why we run around so much and don’t let the calm settle in – we wouldn’t know what to do with it if it came. The calm is awful quiet and the calm lets our minds get much too loud. The calm can drive us crazy.

But the reminder at Christmas is do not be afraid. The hope and anticipation we’re feeling is the promise that comes with do not be afraid. We don’t have to be afraid because One has come and is coming again. The weary world rejoices because we don’t have to be afraid. All is calm and all is bright because we don’t have to be afraid. You know that feeling of relief that comes when you realize you don’t have to be afraid anymore? Maybe you heard a sound in the house at night and it’s the immediate pump of adrenaline as you walk out to find the cause, but when you see it was just your cat knocking something off the counter and you’re not in danger and your fear is quelled – that relief is sweet and comforting, a long exhale. That relief is our hope and our promise.

This morning I was driving through the snow and the song, "Do Not Be Afraid" by J.J. Weeks Band came on the radio. I had never heard it before, and maybe it's just another cheesy Christian song, but I felt like it was a timely reminder of this message that has been on my heart. I want to be ready for Christmas. I want to ease into that day with peace and joy, resting in the good news and celebrating the promise that we don’t have to be afraid. No matter what may or may not happen. No matter if everything turns out exactly opposite of what you wanted. No matter if this is the best or the worst Christmas holiday you’ve ever had, the promise is the same. We don’t have to be afraid because we already have someone who locked this whole thing down thousands of years ago.

 "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people…” Good news of great joy. Do not be afraid.