Reflection is hard, but oh so good for us.

not resolution-ing, afternoon dates, and what a year it has been.

Yesterday afternoon Josh and I snuck away for several hours in a long overdue and much needed attempt at reflection and retreat. The day before, walking outside in the bitter cold as a family, Josh had asked the older boys (in jest) if they had been working on their New Year’s Resolutions. Of course they hadn’t. Because besides being teenagers, they are also as jaded about resolutions as the rest of us who have spent a lifetime realizing the futility of them.

Still, I had to pipe in with my thoughts. I am not a resolution maker. But I have come to appreciate reflection, and believe it is an important if not essential part of being human— especially if we want to be thoughtful ones. So to come to the end of a month, or a particular season, or the end of a year, and to think reflectively back over that time with pointed questions that help to sift through what worked and what didn’t, where we saw growth and where we struggled, where there was joy and where there was pain or disappointment, and then to think thoughtfully toward the next season with all that in mind, is life-giving to me.

I’ve also realized that reflection can be hard.

For some, self-reflection might be difficult because they would rather not delve into their inner lives. This is not my problem. I find it difficult more because I have realized I struggle to be precise, to have clarity, to think specifically and practically. So when I answer reflection questions, I tend to be broad and vague and (no surprise here) negative in general. But that doesn’t mean I can’t get there. It just takes more work, and sometimes needs outside input.

So after a long couple months of separation and decision making, of recovery and restoration, Josh and I carved out an afternoon to reflect on the year together. We used Lore Wilbert’s packet of questions for the New Year, which is extensive and covers a lot of ground. We knew we wouldn’t be able to hit everything, but we each tried to work through the questions ahead of time, and then went over them together sharing our responses and talking through them as we felt led.

There are so many ways we don’t get things right. I am slowly coming to terms with that. But there are times, small moments of— what else can I call them but grace?—when I feel the effects of something that brings health and life to our bones. In this case, just being able to hear one another and to express our support for and desire for one another, to see the path behind us in both its failures and accomplishments and to look ahead with expectation and hope, was the perfect end to this difficult year that I didn’t know I needed.

We hit some major milestones this year. Josh completed his doctorate. I earned a Master’s degree. Our oldest son received his first acceptance into a great university. That alone is astounding to me. I look at the every day makeup of our lives and cannot conceive how these things have come about. But they have. Thanks be to God.

We also made it through another year of COVID in China. Since January of 2022, our kids have been in the school building for only six weeks of the year. We’ve endured yet more seasons of disappointment and frustration with sports cancellations and travel restrictions and limitations in general. These were things that I named as areas of loss. I am not sad to leave them behind, even as we head into a new year that may hold yet more of them. But I also want to say that while I don’t feel grateful for them yet, I see small slivers of good in the midst of them, and I can say thank you to God for his faithfulness to do good and to be good in all of those hard things.

I have hopes for this next year. There will be more significant changes coming to our family and much that feels unknown and scary. But there are things to look forward to with hope as well. One part of the Advent reflections that stuck with me this year was the perspective of the prophets, reflected in both the Magnificat and in Zechariah’s prayer: a very present hope with a very future expectation. Somehow they were able to live in that tension. And it makes me think that I can and must as well. Where can I look for the Spirit of God to be present and active in the here and now, even as I accept the realities of living in these shadowlands?

I’m drawn to the Psalms of Ascents for the same tension that lives in the Advent prophets. We were like those who dream, the Psalmist writes, remembering the good ole days without famine and exile. And then, those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. Weeping lasts for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

True reflection calls it like it is and speaks the truth about our lived experience. It doesn’t take a Christian to reflect well on the past. But for the Christian, the past must be remembered, the future hoped for, and the present lived in light of both.

I am still figuring that out. How to look back and not live in regret. How to sit with the present and not give in to despair. How to look forward with a hope that is real.

And sometimes when we find ourselves in that sliver of sunlight even just for a moment, the one without cynicism or doubt, the one that makes us realize that, human as we are, we are indeed touched with the transcendent and held in the nail-scarred hands, sometimes we can live into the new day as though we were truly made in the image of God.