a new year, a new hope

 

Hope. 

Through some seasons of trudging and delving deeper and unearthing I found some things, some things that felt sacred, some things that were deeply true, some things intricately tied to hope. 

But It wasn’t a hope that would float in and out of my life with the tides of good or bad, with the promise of more when I’m sick of less, or as a tease in front of me masquerading as a goal to reach for. It was a hope that had been forged by fire; one that’s sole purpose wasn’t to get me more but to pave the way for the sacred that already was. 

Hope does that. Hope is that. Hope is the pathway to the sacred. When you are happy and hopeful it’s easy to brush past hope on our way to gratitude. Hope is a stepping stone. But when you have to dig for it in the midst of pain, of loss, of uncertainty, hope lingers in the waiting. Hope is a winding path we become closely familiar with, guiding us to the sacred and the sure. 

When December of 2023 turned to January of 2024 I didn’t really want the hope that was lingering in the margins. I didn’t want a new year. In 2024 the little  one that had grown inside of me at the end of 2023 didn’t exist anymore, expelled from my body before he could really form, he would always exist in 2023 and could never go beyond that brief time. I didn’t want to enter a year he didn’t exist in. The stick with two lines now only showed one. 

Stepping back to the beginning of December 2023, when I was filled with the hope of gratitude for the life that had been promised me. Hope felt like a beacon shining down on me. Surely it would highlight my strength as a mother, as a wife, as a me. I could picture the new year so easily. Growing a new life inside me, growing my ability to be more so that I could be the mother of not one but two, bending and molding myself to be stronger. Hope shined bright. It made me feel stronger already. I was determined to prove that growth wouldn’t slow me down but propel me forward. And then as quickly as hope highlighted new life to me, it was snatched away. Torn from my very body. I felt weak and weary where I so desperately wanted to be strong. The coming holidays meant to be filled with peace, hope, love and joy lingered before me a little more empty. In my loss and grief hope morphed before me, not a shining light anymore. I felt like I was drowning below the waters of my bodies inabilities, below the weight of the knowledge of the one i’ld never hold. Yet Hope was still inexplicably there. Not for a future, but tucked inside the grueling present. Asking for permission to turn my painful circumstance into a sacred journey. 

Hope was a life preserver that I desperately clung to. Knowing that the work before me would be different now. Hope wouldn’t grow for a season. It would tether me to this moment, inviting me to dive deeper with a promise that I wouldn’t drowned. And so I dove into my grief, my loss, my pain with hope as my companion. The holidays came with wonder still. The new year came despite the fact I didn’t want it to. But I was tethered to hope, to the one that stayed behind, to a version of myself I could never be again. Hope would never just be a stepping stone to gratitude for me again. I knew loss too well now to not have to allow hope to take its time, to linger and refine me, to lead me on a sacred path. 

I wouldn’t wish loss and grief on anyone but the truth is that loss will happen still for each of us in its own way and in its own seasons. And when it does, I pray for you this. Let hope in. Not so that you can get past a season but so that you can sit in it instead. Here is the thing I’ve discovered most about hope. If you are willing to invite hope in, it paves the way for the sacred. 

I’ve had a lot of words with God about the one I lost. Hope became His whispered response to the cries of my heart. The cries that said I didn’t want anyone, I wanted that one. The cries that begged to know why. The cries that  at the unearthed end of myself finally said not my will but yours. And in the answer that because my yes, that I wish could be a no was still a yes, it could be received as an offering. What was stolen wasn’t freely but costly given. My loss, my grief, my desperate cling to hope for the one I lost became the most sacred space I’ve ever known. I can look to painful memories now, I can feel the depths of their hurt and honor them as the sacred moments that they were. I won’t diminish them by hiding them away or ignoring them. They are sacred, and costly and pure. A part of my uniquely important path. Just as he was. 

A new year has come again. A new year where the one I hold now still isn’t the one I’ll never get to hold. Where my hope for him isn’t the same as my hope for the other one. It’s a bit further down the path. Forged by deeper fires. I have great hopes for my family. This sacred path has taught me that it’s not in brute strength but in weakness and in vulnerability that I am who I am meant to be. A truth I’ll teach my littles by example, by word, by display of inexplicable hope. 

To the one I call my Anthony who I believe chose to stay. My hopes are up. Shine bright exactly where you are. And to the God I love in all my losses. Hold them sacred, the offerings and the praises. Not mine but yours.