Maybe This Year Will Be Better Than The Last
For various reasons 2007 was a difficult year for many of us. For my wife and I it was perhaps the most difficult year yet. Several deaths in the extended family, strife in the extended family, uncertainty, questioning, seeking God’s will for a new direction in our lives - all has added up to a 2007 that was our toughest year yet.
How can I understand 2007 - with all it’s difficulties, failures, and dissapointments? As I write this I’m looking at a picture from 2007 when my wife and son and I went to Okracoke Island for a few days to get away - we had a blast! But even that trip was marred with stress and worry about what was going on back in the real world from whence we had come.
One of my all-time favorite songs is “A Long December” by the Counting Crows. Here it is:
A long December and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can’t remember the last thing you said as you were leavin’
Now the days go by so fast
And it’s one more day up in the canyon
And it’s one more night in Hollywood
If you think that I could be forgiven… I wish you would
The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
All at once you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl
And it’s one more day up in the canyon
And it’s one more night in Hollywood
If you think you might come to California… I think you should
Drove up to the Hillside Manor sometime after two a.m.
And talked a little while about the year
I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her
And it’s been a long December and there’s no reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better that the last
I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass
And it’s one more day up in the canyon
And it’s one more night in Hollywood
It’s been so long since I’ve seen the ocean… I guess I should
So much of my thoughts about 2007 resonate with this song. There must be reason to believe that this year will be better than the last b/c it almost has to be. The final lines of the choruses resonate as well - “if you think I could be forgiven…wish you would.” I need to be forgiven for the way I thought in 2007. Throughout the year I actually thought that I could make 2007 better. As if it were under my control. Left and right God showed me that it was not in my control, but his. He is orchestrating history, not me. He is guiding paths, not me. Forgive me Father for thinking I’m the one in control.
“if you think you might come to California…wish you would.” My wife and I are planning to move to Colorado (or there’s a slight chance we may move to California), but this line is about getting back together with loved ones, pettitioning them to come to be with you. Colorado, for us, is a long way from home in Virginia and a long way from our families - where there’s strife and need and love. It’s hard to leave.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen the ocean…guess I should.” Maybe that’s the answer, at least in part. Maybe if you’ve had a bad year, you need to go “see the ocean.” The hard thing about depression is that it leads to more depression. The sadder you get, the more removed you become. The more solitude you seek - not for any good reason, its just what you do. You may long for something, like the ocean, but you can’t find motivation to go there. You long for it, and maybe there’s something in the longing that makes you want to stay where you are instead of going after your ocean. Maybe it’s something else. Fear of failure? Falling short and never making it there? Fear that it will just get your hopes up but not last? That it won’t be what you wanted it to be or thought that it would be? Fear that maybe the ocean will swallow you up? Fear of rejection - that even the ocean, that one place your heart feels free, will not receive you? Fear that you’ll find a lot of oysters and no pearls?
These questions have made me ask myself - “what’s my ocean?” What is it that truly brings me joy? There are many things in my life that bring me joy - my wife, my son, my ministry, my family, my friends. But at any given time, any one or all of these will fail - just as I will fail as my wife’s or friends’ one place of true joy. I want it to be God, and I think it actually is God because I know that he has brought all of these sources of joy into my life and that he’s the ultimate source of joy. Sometimes I’ve thought that even God fails me b/c I don’t feel joy when I’m searching for it - even if I’m searching for it in him. But is God failing? My belief tells me no way. My Bible tells me no way. My experiences…tell me maybe. But what seems to be going on in reality is not that God is failing me because I’m not joyfull, but that I’m failing to see God in the midst of pain or trial. I’m failing to hear his voice to calm the waves in the midst of a stormy year.
So what is my ocean? My ocean has to be God. Not just the notion of Him, but the knowing of him and finding joy in the fact that only by Him am I fully known. So my ocean is in the comprehension of the fact that God knows me. God knows me fully, he created me in my mother’s womb and knit me together there. He knows my comings and my goings and he knows my deepest pains and deepest desires. He knows my dreams. He dreams for me. He rejoices in singing over me. He lifts my head. He comforts my heart. I am known. God is my ocean, his knowing me is where I can comprehend it most.
So regardless of what kind of year 2007 was for you. I encourage you to find your ocean. It’s too easy to just say that it’s God - if that’s your answer in the first place. What is it, specifically about Him, that brings you joy? Is it his intense love for you? Is it his relentless pursuit of you? Is it his wild acceptance of you? Is it his tears for humanity? Is it his forgiveness?
Lord, help me to come to the ocean - and, please, let this year be better than the last.
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