Unsettled
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“If you go the wrong way – to the right or to the left – you will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the right way. You should go this way.” Isaiah 30:21
2020 has been a year filled with disappointment, uncertainty, change, fear, grief, and the list could go on and on. It has been an unsettling year and as we approach 2021, we are unsure what will happen and if life will settle down. A new year usually brings a sense of hope, a clean slate, and a hope for a good future. But the uncertainty of the virus leaves many of us unsettled. For those whose lives were changed by grief, the new year brings an uncertainty of how can you begin a new year without your loved one? The thought of beginning anything new especially a year without your loved one seems impossible and unsettling.
The week between Christmas and the New Year is a time where everything seems different without a routine or purpose. We have survived Christmas and live now in our broken expectations or sense of relief that it is over which creates some feelings of guilt. Nothing is normal in this week. We may have spent weeks preparing for Christmas and now that the day has come and gone, we feel exhausted, thankful, relieved, anxious, fearful of the new year, and so many more feelings and emotions come into this week. It is a week where we reflect on the past year which many of us would like to just forget. It is a week where we begin to ponder the new year and make resolutions or goals for the new year. We are feeling unsettled.
To be unsettled means lacking stability and feeling as if everything is out of order. That’s a good description of how grief feels. This week – the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day - describes grief. We have experienced the birth of Jesus and our heart is full of life and hope. Then the day, the life is gone, and we feel numb and nothing is clear. A cloud of uncertainty hovers over, and we just exist through the exhaustion and pain and sadness. Oh, we have moments of joy and thankfulness. We are thankful for family and the blessing of friends and what they bring into these moments. Nothing feels normal. Everyone goes back to their lives and world, and here we are stuck in this feeling of being unsettled. We have a new year, a different life, ahead of us but here we are stuck in these days not being able to describe all the feelings, emotions, emptiness, and uncertainty. We are unsettled.
It is hard to imagine a year or another year without our loved ones. How can I look forward to something without him beside me? How can I make plans without her guidance? One of the hardest steps in my grieve after the death of my husband, Dave, was making decisions. I was so used to talking through decisions with Dave, receiving his opinion, and seeing things from his perspective which helped to see other viewpoints. I have felt unsettled in making decisions. What if I go the wrong way? What if it is not what God wants me to do? You know all those “what ifs” that flood your mind in your grief and uncertainty.
One of the last scriptures my mom and I talked about was from Isaiah 30:21 – “If you go the wrong way – to the right or to the left – you will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the right way. You should go this way.” I have made a lot of decisions in my grief journey. Some were good and some were made without much thought or focus. I have heard a voice – sometimes Dave’s, sometimes my mom’s, and sometimes that inner voice of God – directing my path. Sometimes I listened and sometimes, I learned from my wrong decisions.
I believe the unsettledness of grief and of this week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is trying to discern direction for our lives. This week is a time of reflection. It is when life is different without a normal routine and that is what grief is too. We desire life to be different than 2020, and we want the pain, sadness, and grief not to be in control. We find ourselves eating all the Christmas goodies so we can start fresh and healthy in the new year. We fear that the memories will fade, and it seems impossible to go forward into a new year and life. Listen to the voice behind you and within you. You may take the step into the new year with fear, grief and sadness but that voice, the voice of God’s Spirit, will lead you. God will begin to settle your feelings, not take them away. God promises to be with us and to be our foundation, our rock which stabilizes us in these days of uncertainty, unsettledness, and loneliness.
Settle with Jesus.
