Reflections on a Year… or 30

Hope. Peace. Joy. Love…

For the fifth Christmas in a row, here I am: Far too verbose to fit the message I really want to share on the inside panel of a card. So please consider this letter the 2024 edition of my overflowing words, which – as always - I hope will have less to do with chronicling our year, and way more to do with sharing what I’ve learned from it.    

Because so much can happen in year of real life, can’t it?

And 2024? What a wild one it’s been! In the world, and also in our life…

We’ve done so much, experienced so much, and seen so many things turn out differently than we might have expected. And as I say that, I realize: I can make that statement not only about this past year, but – in so many ways - about the past thirty… Because by the time you’re reading this, Tommy and I will have just celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary.

Thirty-years. …Does that sound to you like a monumental, hard-to-imagine span of time to have been married? Or does it sound like not so long at all? Like maybe we’re really just getting started?

To me, it honestly feels like a little bit of both.

I find that the past year has a lot in common with the past thirty. In each case, it really can feel like time has flown - until I stop to notice and remember everything that has happened, and just how much has changed. When I consider how different many things in our life were a year ago, it becomes hard to believe that it’s only been a year. Likewise, “thirty-years” feels almost impossible to believe - especially since, as I said to Tommy last week, “That sounds like we should be old…” lol.      …But when I stop and compare our life today to what it was like when we first started out? Then, “thirty-years ago” honestly feels like a different lifetime ago. Because in so many ways, it really was. 

To me, the most remarkable example of that is the family we can now say that we have officially raised. Our kids are grown up (both at least as old as we were when we started out), and in full swing when it comes to making their own real lives. It’s both humbling and a blessing to watch.

When I consider all the sometimes complicated, often messy, yet ultimately really beautiful ways God has woven everything together, I realize that our life looks almost nothing like I imagined it might thirty-years ago.

Because He has done so much more than I even knew, or dared, to imagine. 

For better or for worse, life usually changes one little bit at a time, doesn’t it? Day by day, it can seem like not much happens. Until, one day, you look back and realize that “suddenly” everything is different! I find it so powerful to pause once in a while and remember when I longed for what I currently have. That helps me see and appreciate not only all that’s happened, but also plenty that didn’t happen. Sometimes, even things we really thought we wanted. And it also helps me see and appreciate what that has made possible instead. I can see it in the past year; and certainly in the past thirty. 

I’ve come to love what C.S. Lewis once said about that:

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own' or one's 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls interruptions are precisely one's real life - the life God is sending one day by day…”

What if the very thing I consider an “interruption” to my plans is exactly the thing He has had planned for me all along? God’s track record in my life so far continues to teach me to put my real hope in His plan, not my own. I’ve also learned that it’s the only way and place I’ve ever found real peace.    

The life He’s sent us over the past 30-years has been full of opportunities to learn that, and so was 2024. 

I had some plans this year. But most of the best parts of it have been things I never saw coming! 

I began this summer determined to finally write my book. I did manage to write 15,403 words… but then a real-life opportunity intervened. And almost “accidentally”, I basically ended up writing a 97-page bible study instead! In the process, I got to learn and grow in my faith alongside some of my dearest family and friends; and to make new dear friends I never would have otherwise met…

I did not plan (or even imagine) that 2024 would be the year that Tommy and I would become empty nesters. But when Ian had the unexpected opportunity to buy our much-loved, lifelong neighbors’ beautiful home just across the street from us, we sure did! We are not only so proud of him for buying his own home at just 22-years-old, but also humbly grateful that he stayed so close by… That he wanted to! What could have felt very sad to me has actually proven to feel the exact opposite of sad! We’re loving a quieter home and the best new “neighbor”! Just as importantly, we all get to “share custody” of our Drake, who we all love far too much to surrender. Speaking of feeling grateful: This year Ian also found Emma, who has brought him, and all of us, nothing but joy. (So, on that, maybe stay tuned?)

And speaking of joy: This phase of life is teaching us a whole new form of it. There is nothing quite like seeing our grown-up kids be friends with each other; and want to be our friends, too! One of my sweetest and most magical memories this year comes from Brandi’s 29th birthday this fall - including a celebratory trip to New York City with her and Cody, complete with the spectacular experience of seeing Wicked on Broadway! Looking back, I now see that weekend as the turning point where our year really kicked into a whole new gear. (On that also, maybe stay tuned?)

Hope. Peace. Joy. …And then there is Love.

Everything I’ve told you so far is absolutely rooted in love. Yet even it managed to show up in an unexpected way this year. Not only did my “little” brother Matthew find and marry Kathryn (who surely God made especially for him!), but they also completely honored and humbled me by asking me to officiate their wedding. I had never imagined pursuing ordination, but since they asked - I did! As a result, I got to experience the most meaningfully special thing with my brother and my new sister, who incidentally brings to our family two beautiful children. They’re such a blessing, and I love having two more sweet little hearts who call me, “Aunt Stacey.” 

These are just a few of the things that have made up the story of our year, which in so many ways, I can see really has been thirty years in the making. Please trust me when I say there have also been some plot twists! (Who knows what, God willing, I’ll have to tell you at this time next year!?) But the moral of the story? The thing I sincerely want you to know that I’ve learned - this year and in our past thirty? 

God is good.  All the time. He does not make mistakes. Learning to trust and believe that is The Way, the only Way, to find true Hope, Peace, Joy and Love.

When we allow Him to direct our lives, no matter where we are; no matter the chapter or page of our stories, we truly can trust and believe: The best really is – even still - yet to come…

Merry Christmas. …And cheers to 30-years! 

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. ~ Galatians 6:14