A New Year

So 2010 has started. A new year is supposed to bring new expectations, hope, a fresh start, and even an eagerness for life right? Well I woke up today, after only a couple of hours of sleep, exhausted, in pain, and lacking any motivation whatsoever. The truth is that I am kind of at the end of myself.
2009 was a good year by many accounts. There were no great tragedies in my family. My girls continued to grow and learn and change in wonderful and confusing ways. My job changed several times but finally settled into something more predictable. Really, it would appear that I don’t really have anything to complain about.
But 2009 was also a very hard year. It seems like the last four months of the year at least two out of the four of us were sick with something. And sick with kids means even less sleep than normal. I spent much of the beginning of the year wondering if I would get enough hours at work and then when I got more hours, they restructured and eliminated the additional part time job I had been doing. So I spent a couple more months looking for something in addition to the part time teaching that might allow me to keep some resemblance of a normal schedule. Finally, I was offered a part time job at the school that complemented the teaching hours I already had. While it was a blessing, it was also a tiring process.
Really it seemed like last year was a whole bunch of small things that all added up to slowly drain the energy and eagerness from my soul. Job uncertainty, car troubles, sickness, confusion about the future, lack of sleep, tragedies in the lives of distant friends, and many other small things seemed to slowly chip away at my optimism. I like to think of myself as optimistic, but the process of continually fighting to hang on to a positive outlook actually gets tiring at times.
To top it all off, I finished the year with a surgery that hopefully will clear up some of my own health and fatigue issues, but even that turned out to be more of an undertaking than we ever expected. The doctor said that it would be a quick surgery and I might be sore for a few days or a week. What he failed to say was that “sore” meant in horrible pain even with prescription pain killers and that “a few days” really meant a couple of weeks. So my extra time off during the holidays was spent in pain, very drugged up, unable to do many of the things we had hoped to do, and unable to let Jamie rest much.
So why do I bring all this up? Truthfully, I guess I just want to lay it all out as I see it. Moving on from where we are can be nearly impossible if we don’t know where we are at. Last night at the gathering of our church, The Porch, there was a song played by Aaron Espe called “Faith and Doubt” which can be heard here http://www.last.fm/music/Aaron+Espe/_/Faith+and+Doubt. The song expresses some of how I feel right now. Here are the lyrics:

I read that Jesus walked the stormy sea and he pulled Peter up
Said, Man you gotta believe me
And he shared with his disciples
Said, Here’s how to be free
If you asked me I'd say most days
I totally agree
But right now I can't pray, I don't feel like talking to God
I need somebody out there with a little skin on them

When I read that story I heard thunder everywhere
I could hear that boat crashing on the waves
The bow is in the air
And I have respect for Peter who had faith enough to dare
Step out onto the water
While all the others stared
And when hell is on your back,
Sometimes you think you got strength and you say,
Hey Lord, save me, I'm drownin' out here!

But I'm caught somewhere between Faith and Doubt
And I feel like I'm never going to find my way back outta here.

Last night I felt free just like I was a kid
So I laid in the grass and thought of all the things I did
When I didn't know of pressure it was easy to forgive
You didn’t have to be perfect
Not in my neighborhood
I don’t know what year things became so unclear but I’m still here.
But I’m caught somewhere between Faith and Doubt
And I feel like I'm never going to find my way back outta here.


So as I found myself in tears last night, unable to pray or sing, I simply sat. I cried, not because I had some overwhelming sorrow, but simply because I had nothing else in me. What came out was all that was left in my soul. And in the midst of emptying my soul through my tear ducts, I felt like God said to me that there would again be hope in 2010. Though 2009 felt like a year of “death” and fighting to hang on, 2010 would be a year that saw hope revived.
So while I admit that today I am still caught firmly in the cavernous “somewhere” between faith and doubt, I also hold onto the idea that hope will rise again. That just like the spring will bring new flowers and bright colors out of the cold and frozen ground, so maybe God can revive hope in my cold and weary heart. And it is with that last shred of hope that I say to God, “I believe. Help my unbelief.”