January 2024 Newsletter
Welcome to 2024!
This New Year’s Eve weekend I was at a rented cabin in Hillman, MN with my side of the family for our Family Christmas. This has been our tradition since 2001. It was good to be with family. One of our activities is putting together a 1000 piece puzzle. I brought one from home and my niece gifted me one. Mine was very bright and busy—which translates, easy. We put it together in one day. “We” is my niece, my son, his fiancé and myself. It was a delightful group effort. We felt so capable and triumphant that we opened the other 1000 piece puzzle and felt pretty sure we could complete it in the 2 remaining days. The second puzzle was muted and sparse, which translates HARD. My niece did the border and my son’s fiancé did the two small dwellings, the rest of us were left with brown and grey landscape and pale orange sky. Needless to say, the puzzle table became less of a draw. We didn’t finish, even though my niece tried. She called it in the middle of the second day, “We are not going to finish this.” Luckily, we had our triumph in the first puzzle, so we could feel okay about giving up on the second one.
As I reflected on this, I thought about how life can be like this. We are excited to do the easy things and it is good to be with others in the work, but it is less compelling to do the hard work that life brings to us and we tend to avoid the puzzle table even if we have others there to help us. It is natural to avoid the hard things in life. It is good to try and it helps to have other successes to give us the energy to make an attempt. But sometimes we do need to give up. And it is good to have permission. My niece gave us that permission.
Discerning the year ahead, I hope you can name your past successes and be ready to try some hard things. I hope you have a circle of support that gives you the help you need to discern what is worth still doing and what is okay to give up. I hope your prayer life is a part of that circle of support. Spend time with God, ask God what you should be doing or not doing. Sit with God, but also ask that circle of friends, family, your church family. God can speak in a variety of ways.
I hope your life puzzles are primarily bright and busy and easy to complete, but if you find yourself stuck with something muted and sparse...hang in there, you can do it, or you may be able to let it go...
May the Holy Spirit guide you in 2024!