2022

”Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the

water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.”

– Vicki Harrison

Ready or not, here we go. I’m so incredibly torn. Typically I love a new year and everything it entails. Setting goals. Getting my body moving. Being more intentional with my time. Buying a brand new planner. Planning trips for the year.

But as we round out 2021, I know this is the last year I’ll see Hudson. His earthly body won’t be here with me as we move forward to 2022. I don’t know what the future looks like as we navigate this wobbly, tripod family we have become.

I don’t think I’m going into 2022 with a whole lot of optimism, as many who have walked this path have shared that grief truly does come in waves. I DO think I’ll go into this year being very intentional. I have one life. And one beautiful child left. I want to make the most of that with her.

I told my therapist I bought a new planner. (I LOVE buying a planner for the new year- Can I get an amen, Laura?) She asked what style I purchased this year and I told her purchased an hourly one for the first time ever. I think having a visual reminder of how I want to spend my days will be so helpful. It will be filled with things I have to do (work, grocery shopping, counseling), but I’m also planning to fill it with things I want to do. I really want to take charge and make this year, this life, something worth living. Even though we are pretty wobbly and I know will continue to be.

A friend sent me a new devotional called "Even in Darkness." I started it this morning, but I can already tell it's going to be incredible. I'd love to share with you a little of Morgan's heart. (She has lost two of her children over the last year and a half.) After receiving her devotional, I know I need to know her story. I spent the next hour reading her Instagram posts and sobbing. So many of her words written sounded like the thoughts in my own head.

Words from Morgan Cheek:

Take a deep breath in. Exhale out. This? This is your life. Can you be all here? I am learning to live in the present moment- outside of what was and what will be. Those things are all Him. Me? I have no ability to step back into a past I desperately miss. Nor am I able to have an understanding of what’s ahead. My so-called five year plan feels like a blank canvas. But this second. This present moment is what’s been given. Godliness with contentment is great gain; and what is contentment without acceptance of what is?

This is your life. Today. Right here- with these circumstances, that job, those people. This is it. Are you going to trust the mystery that is God in control? Or, are you going to waste all your energy in futility, attempting to get back, rush forward, or micromanage the reality that is? That breath? It’s His. This plan? It’s so much bigger than our physical eyes can see. May we be here- right here- and may we trust that there’s more going on than we could ever ask for or imagine. Faith in the unseen. May we breathe that in as we trust the abundance of now. He is faithful. At all times. In all things. No matter what.