Courage, dear heart

I’ve started to take time each December to prepare for the coming New Year. I’m not the kind of person who makes resolutions, instead I choose a word to declare over myself and over my year. It becomes the quiet and constant prayer of my life. Last December I felt like courage needed to be my word for 2021. Even as I prayed about it I knew I wouldn’t fully see what the courage was for. But as I take time now to reflect on my 2021 I can’t help but laugh. So often we don’t fully know what we’re praying for in the moment, and it’s not a bad thing. If I had known all that 2021 would hold I wouldn’t have prayed for courage, I would’ve prayed to avoid what the year held for me. But God knew what my 2021 needed and what it needed was the steady hum of courage.

Those first few months of 2021 were honestly painful. As 2021 began and my 26th year drew to a close I know I wasn’t making it on my own strength. I was heartbroken and overwhelmed. I was facing a job that was causing so much anxiety that I was physically sick and unable to sleep. It seemed like a miracle that I was able to wake up and teach each day. Looking back it is clear how God held me up, held my heart, and held my hand as I moved forward. I didn’t know what to do or how to feel. I felt like I couldn’t pray. So I asked other people to pray for me. I was honest with them about my pain and my confusion, asking them to hold it with me because I couldn’t bear to do it on my own. And for me, asking for help took courage.

For months I let the prayers of others carry me forward. And those prayers carried me well. These prayers, and encouragement from friends, led me to counseling, another step of courage. Now hear me on this, I am and have been a big fan of counseling. I think it is a good and necessary thing. My fear was more about all of the pain I would be unearthing and where that would leave my already fragile heart and mind. But counseling has been a good and holy thing for me, even as I face my pain I am never facing it alone. I laid out all of my pain as I was seeking healing. My prayers ended up matching this, I would lay on the couch sobbing and repeating that I wasn’t okay, that I didn’t have any other words for it, and could God just take this mess and this muck and handle it for me? I was desperate for a change in my life, my heart, and my head. All I could do for a time was remind God that I couldn’t do it, so God would have to handle it. And that is exactly what God did.

As I sat and sifted through all the pain and anxiety I was carrying I was able to move forward and make changes. Courageously choosing better for myself each day. I started looking for a new job and applied to quite a few. There were a couple that felt like they could be a really good fit. Once again I asked friends and family to pray for and alongside me. I am not sure I have ever had a year where I asked for so much prayer and I am grateful I did. In the end, neither of those jobs worked out. And I was frustrated, 2021 just held so many no’s and I was over it. But I found the courage to believe in something even better for myself, despite not knowing what that might look like and when it might arrive. It has taken courage to begin to step into all that I have been called to.

Summer brought me what might have been my most courageous act of 2021 though. I decided to rest. To refocus. To be still. It went against what I thought I should be doing with my time. But I knew that if I wanted clarity moving forward, if I really wanted to step into my calling, that I needed to be still. To be quiet. To listen. To learn. To lean into the waiting.

If I’m honest, I was afraid to take time to listen. 2021 made me feel like my hearing wasn’t all that great, that I hadn’t quite understood the call and direction for my life. I wasn’t sure I could hear clearly from God anymore. Just admitting that to be true took time and the safe space of counseling. Sitting with the truth in order to move forward took even more time. It was time well spent though, it gave me what I needed to move forward.

The truth is I am not, generally, afraid of the quiet, of deep thinking and meditation. I actually tend to prefer it. In fact, that’s where I thrive, my students often commenting on how I had no shallow thoughts, it was all deep thinking for Ms. Ellington. The summer gave me the time and space to fully embrace that part of me again and I’m grateful. Taking the time to push back against the fear, learning to trust, again, that I could hear and know the voice of God. This was the re-centering my year needed, this is what gave me the courage to continue to move forward.

This time led to the turn around of 2021. One weekend in July that was the beginning of what was better. A weekend spent with my friend Erin. A weekend where I could finally begin to dream again, alongside a friend who wanted me to dream and dream big. In some ways it felt like I was finally coming up for air, finally getting a win in a year filled with so many losses. I began to believe, once more, that I could hear from God. There was no need for the burden of fear to impair my hearing. So I’ve taken time to listen again. Beginning, again, to believe I can hear where God is guiding me in life. And now it’s about taking courageous steps in that direction. Stepping forward even though I’m scared and unsure. But I am moving forward anyway.

Courage for 2021 didn’t look like what I imagined it would. But it marked me, I believe, for the better. And for most of 2021 I have been able to look down at my arm for a constant reminder of courage, and I am grateful (thank you Jennifer Edge at Mainline Ink!). Because I know courage will continue to carry me forward in a million more ways than I thought possible.