In it Together

In it Together

By Kristen Hartman

 

January 1 is going to arrive in a few days, and I won’t have a single resolution ready.

I am not a visionary. I do not walk into a room and see potential. I see reality and history. I’m drawn to the old house with character, not because I see what it could be but because I want to find its story, its past.

So when a new year crowds the horizon, I’m not filled with excitement and anticipation. I do not have a list of resolutions or hopes or a word for the year. I haven’t found last year’s word yet! I’m months—or years—behind the calendar still attempting to make sense of what has been.

And that’s okay. I’m giving myself permission to be me: resolution-less and reflective.

But, do you know what I see when I look back?

I see a really hard, really good year. Several of them, actually. Some of the hardest years of my life . . . and yet, the very richest years. But I missed so much of the richness in the moment-to-moment-ness of them.

Today, on the cusp of a new year, I look back and see how very many people have been with me in the hard. They’ve carried me. They’ve passed me tissues and rubbed my back while I cried. They’ve fed me. They’ve listened to my words and my silence. They’ve served me and given me places to serve. They have made space for me to be imperfectly present.

Some are people I’ve done life with for years—they know me. And some are women I’ve been in community with for mere months or just a few years. Women I never would have met if I hadn’t taken the challenging-for-an-introvert step of entering into smaller settings to shrink this big church family to a more intimate size. And, guess what? Now they know me, too.

I don’t know if you’re a resolution maker or a reflector. I don’t know if last year was hard or good or both for you. I don’t know if you’re excited about 2019 or still trying to find 2018 . . . or 2012. But I know we weren’t created to be alone in the hard or in the good. I know life is richer when we’re in it together.

If you don’t have other women with arms linked through yours, maybe 2019 is the year to find them. To let them walk with you and for you to walk with them—it goes both ways. And if that first step feels terrifying, or it hasn’t worked out so well before, I get it. I’m with you. It’s risky. But it can be so, so good.

Let me be the first to invite you into 2019. Let’s be in it together this year.