I experienced two deaths on February 20, 2021. The death of my husband, Chaz, and the death of my future. That’s how it felt anyways. I know that I still had a future but it wasn’t the future I wanted. I couldn’t fathom a future where Chaz wasn’t with me.
For the rest of 2021 I was surviving. Barely sometimes. I struggled thinking about the future. Daydreaming about the future used to be one of my pastimes. But now I couldn’t picture what my life was going to look like or what I wanted my life to look like in the next 2 months, 6 months, a year or 5 years.
I dreaded the approach of the new year. I didn’t want to enter a year that Chaz was never going to be alive in. But I do not possess the power to stop time so January 1, 2022 came and I continued to survive.
The beginning of 2022 was a lot. So much happened over the course of a few months. It was a heavy and emotional time. I went through the whole process of buying a house, my grandfather passed away, the one year anniversary of Chaz passing away, packing up the home that I lived in with Chaz and moving into a new house.
But sometime in April I noticed that I didn’t feel like I was surviving anymore but living. I was feeling more settled in my life. My joy was starting to come back. I started thinking about the future again. My future no longer felt dead.
My head never forgot God’s promise of ‘plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope’ Jeremiah 29:11 ESV. It took my heart a little bit to remember. It felt good be excited about the future again. It still feels good.
In June 2022, with expectation and excitement I took a step into a possible direction for my future. And I’m so glad that I did! It’s been redeeming, challenging, fun and full of love.
It feels good to be excited for the new year. But I understand if you are dreading what comes at the end of this week. And it’s ok if you don’t want to look to the future yet. We all have seasons where we can only focus on one day at a time, one hour at a time or one minute. But if you feel the nudge of hope let it come in and sit with it for a bit because it’s ok to move forward when you are ready to.
