New Year’s Eve, we call it.

As if.

As if this day were nothing more than a doorway to next year. As if we simply stand looking forward in anticipation of what is to come.

If only.

If only the last three hundred sixty-five days were merely time passed, and not lives passed. If only there were nothing to look forward to besides wonder and joy.

But, I stand at the end of a year filled with emotional events and I’m not yet ready to move on. My feet are planted in this year—this joy/sorrow/confusion-filled year—and I’m not ready to pick them up and step into the next one with its mysteries. And, its dread. And, its anticipation.

I stand here and tears come. They come for a brother who is walking out of this year without the love of his life, she who walked through forty of them before with him. I weep for a son bereft of a mother and for wives posed to walk into futures without husbands, suddenly and unexpectedly taken from them. There are so many others, for whom the year was anything but a fulfilled promise of love and laughter.

The tears flow for myself, as well. Their losses were mine, with others all my own mixed in. It was in this year that a mentor, long my teacher, was left behind. His path has strayed so far from the straight, narrow one he encouraged me to walk so many times in the past, interactions now merely attempts to persuade me to stray there with him, that separation was unavoidable.

But, like the mother whose child is lost, here I stand, unwilling to take another step away. It was here he was lost. If I move on, he may never find his way home.

And so, tears watering the ground, my feet are firmly planted. Here. On the eve of the new year.

We said goodbye to them today. The girls have been here many times before and, we hope, will come many more times. Perhaps, it won’t be all that many. Hugs were given, again and again.

Then it was their mother’s turn. She too, has been here many times before. Tears flowed. They do that, you know.

She wondered aloud, their mother did, if she kept her feet firmly planted on the ground, this ground she was raised on, could she stay here forever?

But, home is somewhere else for her (and them) now. After more hugs and more tears, her feet carried her, however reluctantly, to the conveyance that would bear them away home.

Home.

Somewhere else.

As I write this sentence, it is moments away from the new year. Likely, the hour will have struck on the old grandfather clock in my living room long before my task is finished.

The future becomes the present, moving into the past without our consent. Feet firmly planted or no, the world spins into what will be. Our Creator has ordained it and nothing we do will change that.

He has given us the choice of the path before us. Year after year before this, we have made the choice. I suppose it has been a long series of choices. For me, some of them have been very good choices; some, not so good. A few have been very bad. And yet, here we are.

Gently, He draws us back to the road home. Again and again, we have opportunity to follow. He guides our steps, through heart-wrenching loss, through incredible joys, and in the dark days of just not knowing at all. (Proverbs 16:9)

It is midnight. The threshold is crossed.

I will walk. Into the new year, I’ll walk. Sorrow won’t end. Losses won’t be erased. Relationships may never be restored.

Still, we walk.

With Him. By faith.

With each other.  In love.

Home lies ahead.  Really.

Home.

Time to get moving.

 

He guides our steps, through heart wrenching loss, through incredible joys, and in the dark days of just not knowing at all. (Proverbs 16:9) Click To Tweet

 

This world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there’s a rumor going around the shop that some of us are someday going to come to life.
(from Mere Christianity ~ C.S. Lewis)

 

I will teach you wisdom’s ways
    and l will lead you in straight paths.
When you walk, you won’t be held back;
    when you run, you won’t stumble.
(Proverbs 4:11,12 ~ NLT ~ Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.)

 

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2019. All Rights Reserved.