Losing A Whole Year

You guys.

I don't wanna alarm you, but in a few weeks, it will be Thanksgiving.  What?  How is it November already?

Right now I'm looking up at a beautiful half moon.

And contemplating.  Because that's the beauty of post-baby-bedtime.  The luxury of thinking, feeling, being. It's peaceful, quiet, a hush falls over our home.

Last week we celebrated Halloween.  It was... beautiful and crazy.  Both things equally.

And a few weeks before that, we celebrated Arlo's first birthday.

Wonderful things.  But both of those treasured holidays signify something much deeper for our family.  Last year, Arlo's birth was the beginning of an incredibly hard season.  By Halloween last year, we were in the depths of sickness and loss across our entire family, and began a journey that spun us into New Years and beyond with Ryan's cancer diagnosis.

So. This season has a very new significance to me.  When we finally knew Ryan was cancer-free, March 28th, our 7 year wedding anniversary, it was the biggest blessing we've ever encountered.  And as the spring and summer wore on, it felt as though it was all fading away.  It was all moving further and further from our current reality.  It was the past.  We focused on tomorrow, not yesterday.

But something strange has happened over the past few weeks as we have once again moved into the season that formed us into different people last year.  Everything felt closer.  The fear of last year didn't feel further away, it felt nearer.  It felt imminent.  

The one year mark wasn't feeling like something to celebrate, instead it felt more like something to dread.  So, I've been working.  Working on making it seem further away, focusing on tomorrow. Making the past the past.

Per the Scrubs finale (season 8, cuz obvi that's the last one that counts): "It's never good to live in the past too long, as for the future, it could be whatever I wanted it to be."

But you can only make the past the past and focus on the future if you actually see what the future holds, and fear cannot play into that equation.  You have to see beyond it.  And that's impossible without Jesus.  Seeing what He has for us is what removes the fear.

Jeremiah 29:11 - For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Hope and a future.  There is no promise that it will be without troubles.  Without cancer.  Without another hard season.  In fact, in this world, it is expected that we will definitely experience life-altering pain and hardship.  But.  That is not a reason to fear when we know what is before us in the spiritual world.  Fear is worldly. Peace is not.

So, as we grapple with what this season is, what it means, and what God has for us, we will continue to believe in that verse.  He knows what His plans are for us.  They are FOR us. They are plans to PROSPER us.  They are plans NOT to harm us.  They are plans to give us HOPE and a FUTURE.

We will pray over that.  We will speak that into our family.  And as we look over the past year, and plan for the next, we will refuse to look as this as our "lost year" and instead, see it as the year that we were found.

We will choose to rest in You.  In the words of our treasured family bedtime story, "Goodnight moon".