2017: A Weighty Joy

I love the contemplative reflection a new year brings. That feeling of turning a new page or starting a new chapter. For me this contemplation begins at the start of advent (the church season leading up to Christmas) and continues through the new year. Advent is about sitting in the darkness and creating space for God to move in you as you wait for the promised Light. I've never been one who enjoys New Year's Eve itself-it seems to be one of those holidays where my expectations always exceed my reality. I find myself wanting to experience something momentous and dramatic, as if it were possible to bottle six weeks of reflection and squeeze it into a 10 second countdown. Which is why this year I rang in the new year watching The Crown, drinking wine and eating a Papa John's cinnamon roll dessert. 

2017 was a conundrum. A year of blessing and pain. Abundance and loss. Excitement and devastation. In business, it was my best year yet. I met so many stunning women who inspired me with their stories and trusted me to photograph their unique beauty, which allowed us to create art together. My family continued to heal and grow stronger together after the emotional loss we experienced two years ago. I found an incredible therapist who has helped guide me towards profound insight into my life. 

2017 was also the year Matt and I spent building our first house. We waited six months for the city to grant us permission to build our house. Selected every paint color and drawer pull. Every light fixture and appliance. Poured over financials to get the lenders the information they needed. Wrote the Thanksgiving menu we'd serve both our families as first time hosts. Pictured where we'd put the Christmas tree. Waited and waited and waited. Only to have it burn down 5 days before we were supposed to close. As in start completely over. As in take the house back down to the slab and wait some more. 

It's a strange sort of loss to lose something you never actually experienced. You can't reflect over memories because all you have was what you imagined. I hear about this from clients all the time-my women who want desperately to be mothers, but can't have a child. Women who enter into or walk away from a marriage only to find their new reality isn't at all what they imagined. Women who become mothers, yet recognize themselves less and less. There is a type of grief that can be born when our imagined reality meets our actual reality and finds it unrecognizable.

But the opposite is also true. There is a strange sort of joy that comes when you expect things to be unbearable and they end up being something you savor. A different joy. A dark joy. A weighty joy. I fully expected the last few months of the year to be full of pain. I thought I'd be sad when we drove to our families homes for Thanksgiving instead of having it in our new house. I thought it would break my heart to put our Christmas tree up in our condo again instead of the new spot where I imagined it standing all year. But isn't it the very fingerprint of God that He can take such deep pain and bring about deep peace. He reformed the season into something I savored. He walked with me through my devastating disappointment and brought me a season I never would have had if our plans had gone the way we expected. A season of "one last time's" instead of a season of "this again". A season of growth and solidity. A season of hardship as a pathway to peace.

I have great expectations for 2018. It will be the year that begins with us getting to finally move into our house. It will be the year I roll out international boudoir with trips already planned for Japan, Paris, Italy, Indonesia and Bali. It will be the year I continue to be intentional in carving out space for God. I'm sure it will also bring expectations that don't match reality-as every year before has brought, but those will just be places where I'll wait expectantly for God's fingerprint. 

Happy New Year, everyone!