One Word for 2020
Every year people the world over choose their guiding word for the year. It’s something I’ve done myself in years gone by and it’s something that I’ve found myself thinking about more and more in the past few weeks. 2019 was a big year for me and my family. In December 2018 I made the choice to return to Christian fellowship.
I grew up in a Christian home. I have considered myself a Christian all of my life. I attended church in my teens, I intermittently attended during my 20s and then when I moved to Canberra in 2002 I completely stopped. I went once or twice just before we were married when I was thinking about the decision in front of me.
I always told myself that I was ok because I prayed regularly and had what I thought was a strong knowledge of scripture. Turns out, I wasn’t. I was deluding myself. I was avoiding doing what I knew I had to do because I didn’t want to submit. I wanted to do my own thing. I thought I knew best.
During our IVF journey I prayed a lot. I knew that it was out of my hands and that I had to rely on the Lord and accept that it wouldn’t happen without His permission. I remember the exact moment I submitted. I remember tears streaming down my face and telling Him that I was 100% in His hands and I would accept His will.
When our son was born I didn’t turn back from my self fuelled folly and return to worship. I thanked the Lord, took my prize and continued on my merry way. I had made a promise that our son would be raised to know the Lord, but here I was ignoring that promise.
In the time since his birth there’s been some difficulties. My anxiety grew with every year of his life. I became fearful of everything. I retreated from the world in an attempt to keep us all safe. I ignored and pushed down what I knew to be right because I wanted to be in control.
Then in 2018 my friend died unexpectedly. She was my age. We had been close like sisters for 10 years during my early 20s. She was the nicest person I had ever known and she was gone. Just gone. In the blink of an eye – she was here and then she wasn’t. I struggled to make sense of it all. It added to the weight I was carrying around. It made me even more fearful and made me shrink further from the world.
In 2018 my health got to its lowest point. I had been in some sort of medical treatment since 2006 when we started on the reproductive merry-go-round. The IVF caused issues with my body and the birth of our son didn’t alleviate them. Six month after he was born I had my gall bladder removed. Every year I was having scans, tests, poking and prodding to try and get my endometriosis under control and to make sure I wasn’t pre-cancerous. By 2018 my pain levels were debilitating.
Between issues with my reproductive organs and my digestive system I was crushed. I was living, but I was living a half life. I was constantly ill. I was always tired and always waiting for something else to happen. In 2018 I managed to convince my GP to refer me for a hysterectomy. I begged for one. I had it scheduled for July 2018. A month out from the surgery date my husband lost his job. I had to rescheduled the private surgery.
Then in August, a week out from my surgery I presented to the ER in pain thinking I had another ovarian cyst. Turns out I had perforated my bowel. After a day in hospital not knowing what was going on and if I was going to die I found out I have diverticulitis disease. I had to cancel my hysterectomy while I waited 2 months to be able to have my bowel checked out.
Once I got the all clear from that I had my hysterectomy 2 weeks later. It was during the process of coming out of that surgery that my anxiety kicked into overdrive and caused me to have to be in the ICU while they got my heart rate under control as they tried to bring me out of sedation. Turns out my brain decided that I was going to die and so my whole body decided at that point in time to freak out.
24 hours after coming out of surgery I was sitting talking with a friend in my hospital room and out of nowhere I had a massive panic attack. Doctors were called, sedatives were given, cardiologists consulted and I was told I needed to see someone about getting my anxiety under control or I was going to die prematurely of worry.
I took the advice and went home. A week after getting home I was back at the hospital with a post-surgery infection. I was told to have strict bed rest or I’d be back in hospital and possibly having more surgery. A week later our son said he wasn’t feeling well and showed signs of gastro. 24 hours later we were in the ER watching him get wheeled off for emergency surgery.
I lost my biscuit. I couldn’t stop crying. My body shut down. My brain went into overdrive and I had a one-on-one moment with his anaesthesiologist where she told me in a not so friendly way that I had to leave the pre-theatre room because I couldn’t get myself together and was freaking my own son out unnecessarily which would make things so much harder for everyone involved.
At the one time in his life where he needed me I was falling apart. I who had fought so hard to carry us through 6 years of IVF, I who was in control of our destinies, I who could make anything happen was standing in a hospital uncontrollably crying and heaving sobs because I knew I wasn’t in control.
He came out of surgery and then proceeded to spend a week in hospital because he was so scared of what was happening to him that he wasn’t able to keep food down and so wasn’t able to heal like he needed to. I’d made him so scared that I had now hurt him as well as not being able to be there emotionally for him. My fear was seeping into everything.
When he came home a week later I knew what I needed to do. I needed to return home. I needed to do what I knew to be right in my heart and what I had been running from for most of my life. So on December 28 I went to Church. Not because of our health issues, but because I had gotten to a point in my life where I was so self-centred I couldn’t bare to look at myself in the mirror.
I was angry. I was intolerant. I was living for myself because I thought that would bring me happiness and control. I was doing the very things I knew I was not supposed to be doing. I was raging against the God that I knew and the God that I had told myself I loved. I had wandered so far off the path that I could no longer tell which way was up. This is why I knew it was time to return. I was so scared of dying because I knew that I’d have to give account for my behaviour and I didn’t want to have to do that. I didn’t want to stand in front of my Lord and Saviour and hear him say “I don’t know you.”
I’ve been faithfully attending Sunday service ever since. I attend a weekly Bible Study. I do near daily private Bible study. I pray. I try to implement what I’m learning and to live my life in glory to God. It’s been an uphill battle. I am learning just how entrenched my self-centredness is. Every day I thank the Lord for the mercy He has shown me.
One of the things that I’ve learned in the past year is how much I’ve turned away from others. If you’ve spent any time with me in the past few years you’ll have likely heard me say “I don’t like people” or “I don’t like being around people”. It’s not true. I actually really love people. I love helping and I love sharing and learning. It’s one of the reasons why I started doing what I do – I wanted to be with people and share in their lives.
But I got hurt. I got hurt and I did some hurting. I convinced myself that I wasn’t the type of person others would want to know. So I took pre-emptive measures and cut people out. I thought this because it’s how I thought about myself, because I knew I wasn’t the sort of person God was asking me to be. I stopped forgiving other people for the very things that I was doing. I retreated because I wanted to protect myself, protect my family and hide.
The Lord calls us into a Church family. He calls us to serve each other, both in and outside of that Church family. So my word for 2020 is: service. I want to be of service to my own family, my Church family and the communities that I find myself in. I want to help with the gifts that I’ve been given to grow these families and communities.
I had an ah-ha moment a few weeks ago when I was reminded of the saying: “Love is a verb.” It’s a doing word. I’d gotten so caught up in thinking that love is some feeling, some romanticised and commercial version of this word that’s been corrupted in our society. I needed reminding that love is an action.
I’d been reading that I was to love the Lord my God with all my heart, my mind, my strength and my spirit. I wasn’t sure how I was to do this and I was struggling because I didn’t “feel” like I was doing this. Then I read 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
I realised that this was my action plan for doing. This is how I am to love. It’s not some random feeling, it’s doing. It’s action. It’s getting out there and making mistakes and living life with our eyes firmly planted on the Lord. And so my goal for 2020 is to love and one of the ways I am going to do that is through service. I need to get back to being in the world, not hiding from it. I’m not sure what it will look like, but I’m committed to looking for and taking the opportunities that will arise and trusting in the Lord that He will guide my steps.
If you’re in the Canberra region and would like to come to fellowship at our Church you can find out more by clicking here.
