No. 64: "I Think You Left Something Behind"

A reflection to end the year

Dec 22, 2023

We’ve finally reached the tail-end of online shopping marathon season. For nearly two months, I’ve filled carts and abandoned them, realizing that if I don’t pull the trigger right in that moment, I likely didn’t need the item after all.

Brands are clever, though. They realize that if they remind you of your cart, even going as far as to send an email or text with the contents that caught your eye, the chances you’ll come back increase astronomically. If they can just get the thing before your eyeballs, they’re likely to keep you there. Sometimes they say, “Oops! You forgot something!” or, “Something You Love is Selling Out!” But I noticed a recurring message in brand’s emails: It Looks Like You Left Something Behind.

I keep repeating the phrase in my mind. I see the phrase when I close my eyes. On one hand, I mean, hats off to the marketing team. On the other hand, I got stuck on the beauty and magnitude of it all.

It Looks Like You Left Something Behind.

This phrase caused me to stop and reflect on what we truly leave behind and what we take with us when one year ends and another begins. Whether good or bad, whether truly terrible or overwhelmingly wonderful, we will all move on from 2023. We can come back to it in memories that will become fuzzier and fainter and more shaped by our feelings than their reality—but this year will give way to another just like years have since Romans finally realized the dire need for a restart every twelve months .

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When I was little, sitting at my school desk writing any date that started with a ‘12’ in the upper right corner of my page made me bubble with giddiness. Soon, it’d be Holiday Break, then Christmas, then an entire brand new year!! I’d be a month and some change away from turning seven or ten or thirteen! When I wasn’t in an anxious tailspin about change and my parents getting older and the reality of my own mortality (yes, I vividly remember contemplating these thoughts surrounded by my pink cloud wallpaper at seven years old,) I was thrilled about what the next year had in store. Good riddance, current year. You know?

The older I get, the more writing that “12” in the corner of my prayer journal makes my stomach turn just the teeniest bit. Because no matter how challenging the year (and this one truly takes the cake) or how delightful the year (this one takes the cake on that, too) It’s still a whole year.

A year holds so many promises made and broken. It represents expectations unmet and greatest fears realized. There’s the singsong and sparkly “wow, anything can happen!” magic at the start of a year and the lowercase, somber “wow, anything can happen” reality at the end of a year. Right now, at this very moment, I’m holding both of those perspectives at once.

This year, we saw death up close three times. We felt the financial stretch and relational strain of a renovation extending fifteen months over the projected timeline. We faced the first parenting challenges that didn’t have a clear-cut solution and were left with the reminder over and over that no amount of research and routine can ensure the outcome we hope for with our children. Success felt elusive this year. I lived in the very real reality of life in a broken body with an autoimmune disease and the mess it has made in its path. Despair was a moment to moment temptation at times and despite my best efforts, anxiety often threatened to rewire my brain.

The perseverance and endurance that came as a result will come with me.

I was pregnant at the same time as my sister and we shared every minute of the experience until we gave birth five days apart. We welcomed that baby we had spent years praying for in the sweetest, most miraculous birth of my life. We beamed with pride as we watched our children grow and learn new things and overcome challenges and fall in love with their baby brother. I celebrated twelve years of sharing a last name and bed and life with my favorite man on the planet and marriage counseling continued to strip us of our flesh. I traveled with my sisters and spent time with friends and poured into relationships in an intentional way that felt rejuvenating beyond words. I turned in the manuscript I had spent months working on for a dream project I didn’t even seek out and the Lord put in my lap. I saw the transformative work of the Holy Spirit and felt the nearness of God in a new way, especially in my brokenness.

The joy and hope that I have gained as a result will come along with me, too.

While I can’t bring this year along with me,

and my goodness, you couldn’t pay me to,

I can continually be shaped by all that I was blessed to learn, experience, witness, glean, and survive in the past twelve months.

What I know more now than I did when I shouted Happy New Year on January 1st is that truly, no single minute is promised. Every single one is a grace, an opportunity, a gift. I can’t wait to do it again.

This precious knit frog is possibly the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. I showed O a few videos and he reacted a way I only could describe as… swooning in giddy adoration? Very, very unlike him when it comes to anything aside from our babies so that feels like a glowing recommendation. It’s delightful. Especially this video. And this one.

I make O these Vegan Funfetti Cinnamon Rolls every single Christmas Eve and make these Sweet Laurel Paleo Cinnamon Rolls for the kids and I. If you’re looking to try a new tradition, I highly recommend those recipes. (I also make Eggnog French Toast every Christmas morning carrying on my mom’s tradition and this is the best tasting vegan eggnog by far, but this is the vegan eggnog with the best ingredients by far..)

Matt Chandler’s words in one of The Village’s Advent Sermon a few weeks ago have stuck with me: “Where you place your hope is imperative to your experience of joy. If you put your hope in things that can’t hold up the weight of it, then you’ll find your life filled with anxiety, sadness and anger. But if you put your hope in the right place—if you drop anchor in that place that’s unshakable, the Bible tells us in Romans 10 that those who hope in them will never be put to shame. So to put our hope in other things is to grow in shame, to put our hope in Jesus is to be saved from shame.”

I’ll be in your inboxes with my favorite photos from our Christmas next Friday, but if you’re looking for words to enjoy, consider last year’s Christmas Letter and last year’s New Year’s letter (plus pregnancy announcement.)

As I hear my own baby crying in his bed when he should very much be asleep because it’s very much the middle of the night, I say thank you, Jesus. Thank you for choosing that uncomfortable, unsanitary manger to be born as a limited, real life baby. Thank you for coming to this mess. For this mess—me. Thank you for being our living hope.

I hope you have a beautiful, warm and fuzzy Christmas filled with the ones you love and the cookies you love and the pajamas you love. And I pray that if your Christmas just reminds you of something that has left you feeling broken, you cling to the hope that Christmas celebrates just that. The baby in the manger is the light of the world. The Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace who lived a perfect life and died a predetermined death so that one day, we will dwell with Him in eternity with not a shred of brokenness in sight. And until that day, we have the fullness of joy in Him no matter our circumstances because love came down. Glory, glory, glory.