This new year is well underway. Some of us may have come into 2024 with a leap in our step. Others of us may just barely have made it over the line. I resonate with the latter. Twenty Twenty-Three was a difficult year for our little family. In many ways, I’m not sad to see it go.

I think others may share my sentiment. In my social media feed, post after post concerns hopes for better things in this New Year. Longings for medical break throughs, jobs, marriages, answers. Often a New Year is a blank-slate opportunity for better—something less hard. I know these longings all-too well. For years after my husband and I married, we experienced the pain and heartbreak of infertility. With each passing year, we wondered if this was the year we would be parents. Medically our chances were stacked against us—yet not impossible. We prayed for possible. Like so many who have journeyed the infertility road, month after month brought new waves of loss and grief. Every month we experienced the death of a dream while others around us celebrated life. For those that read a little of my backstory, the desire for family has always been real and long-standing. There were so many questions I internally struggled to reconcile with God. After-all, hadn’t my husband and I served Him faithfully? Children are supposed to be a blessing, right (Ps.127:3)? Why were we not so blessed? What was wrong with me? In many ways, I felt overlooked—forsaken. It took me two years of wrestling these hard questions to more deeply understand God’s sovereign hand in my life. My line of questions began to shift. If God chose NOT to bring children into my life, would I still trust Him—still follow Him? This was the rubber-in-the-road grappling with God’s sovereignty that brought me to the end of myself into fuller trust in God. Each month, each new year, I had to embrace the fact that circumstances may not change. That the “better” I prayed for was a different better only God could supply—child or not. In the end, I chose trust. Trust in God that He is good all the time, and that all the time He is good.

Resolve to trust God more fully ended my infertility struggle. Instead, hand-in-hand, my husband and I walked down the road of adoption with all its uncontrollable unknowns. Nothing about adoption felt comfortable. Nothing was controllable. In spite of this, we knew adoption was right where God wanted us. Trusting Him. In God’s perfect timing, in His perfect way, we were matched with birth parents who had hand-picked us for their baby. Several months later we met our oldest son for the first time. As we navigated the narrow hallway of the hospital that day in 2012, knowing our long-anticipated son was just on the other side of the doors swinging open to us, I was overcome. God’s lavish grace and mercy was overwhelmingly good. Where I had once felt unseen, unheard and rejected, God tangibly revealed to me through adoption just how “chosen” I really was—child or no child. 

Stumbling into 2024, I, like many of you, don’t know what lies ahead. The new that I hope is “better” may not be “better” at all. The hard that I try and pray away may be the catalyst God wants to use to draw me more deeply to Himself. Through the years, I have begun to learn that navigating hard is less about removing it than it is about where I place my trust through it. A poem, often attributed to Minnie Louise Haskin, but most likely written and published privately in 1912, beautifully illustrates steadfast trust as a New Year begins. These words were used to encourage many in Great Britain during the trials of the Second World War;

The Gate of the Year
And I said to the man who stood at the gate
Of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and
Safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God,
Trod gladly into the night.
And he led me towards the hills and the
Breaking of day in the lone East.

The dark can be a fearful place, can’t it? The uncertain unknown paralyzing at times. We all want light to tread onward, to be lifted upward, out of the hard in our lives. I don’t know what the hard is that you faced last year. Likewise, I don’t know what the hard is you face this year. An ongoing medical issue, a wayward child, childlessness, a broken marriage, hurting relationships in general, joblessness—the list is endless. Life is brim with hard. There is much I don’t understand in the face of hard. What I do know is this: to place ourselves in God’s hands is more than enough to uphold us through it. God is all the path we need for the journey. He makes a way in the wilderness. God sees, He hears, He provides—God delivers. Perhaps not in the way we immediately expect, but God has given us a future, unshakeable hope. His love for us is steadfast. Truly, God will make all things new, and what God does, is always better:

“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness

And rivers in the desert.

The wild beasts will honor me,

The jackals and the ostriches,

For I give water in the wilderness,

Rivers in the desert,

To give drink to my chosen people,

The people whom I formed for myself

That they might declare my praise.”

Isaiah 43:18-21 ESV

As I ponder these things in this New Year, as a parent, I’m aware that in my home, little eyes are watching how I walk trust out. My goal this year is to try and help my littles understand that God is enough. Often times, especially with very young children, the battle is helping them discern what it is they need, and it’s not the new shiny toy on the store shelf. My children need Christ, just as I do—not something I imagine to be better. How can we help our children realize their need for Christ more? Here are just a few things I plan to try and be more faithful about implementing in our household:

1. Read God’s Word—not just for yourself, but TOGETHER. Let your kiddos peek into your private devotional life and watch you lean into Jesus. Too often I think I have to sneak away for time alone with God. While there is need for this private time, we must also allow our kiddos the opportunity to witness our time spent with God. If they are little, as my three-year-old is, let them snuggle in with you quietly and have devotional time side-by-side occasionally. Modeling is an excellent teacher.
2. Pray together! Pray with your children, for your children, as a family—I can’t over emphasize how important prayer is. Modeling instructs kiddos in tangible ways that words alone often fall short.
3. Ask your children questions! Ask them what they are learning, what they thought of sunday school and church, ask them what they talk about with friends. Get a barometer on where they are at internally, as this will help direct you to unspoken needs they may not even be aware of or able to vocalize.
4. For older children, let them choose some bible study resources for themselves. Let them pick out a fun journaling notebook, highlighters and devotional tools. Begin teaching them how to use a concordance. Already, my fifth grader is learning how to use a dictionary and thesaurus in school—so why not a concordance? A wonderful resource for family devotional material is Not Consumed.

As we run, or stumble, into the new year, what baggage comes with you Mom? Dad, what heavy load do you need to lay down in order to more firmly rest your hand in God’s? Don’t just hope or wish the hard away this year—look to God who is the Way. Live out that anchoring trust not just for your sake, but model it for those looking in and watching.