I know that I wrote my 2020 New Years reflection with great seriousness and hope, but I couldn’t help laughing out loud when I read it last week.

Almost one year ago, Matt and I sat down to reflect. To look back at 2019 and look ahead to 2020. And it was really fun to look back, to share thoughts, hopes and dreams together. I had written that one of the biggest things I had learned in 2019 was that following Jesus required suffering.

And when I reflected upon what it would look like for our family to thrive in 2020, I wrote that I wanted more joy and more peace. I wrote that my word for 2020 would be “Enjoy.”

And reflecting nearly a year later, I couldn’t help but LOL. For a couple of reasons, actually.

The first is because More for Motherhood has been a song in my heart for at least a year now. I wanted “more joy, more peace”, and I find it wild that the Lord has led me here. I didn’t expect to start this blog, this community of mamas– and yet it has brought me such joy.

The second reason I laughed is because days after writing that reflection, I would go into labor birthing our second son, and entering into almost a year-long season of postpartum depression. It is not an overstatement to say that 2020 has been the hardest year of my life. So to remember that my word for 2020 was “enjoy” feels just comical. And yet, in a season of great darkness for me, the Lord has brought about real joy as well.

I’ve been talking with a Christian counselor for over 6 months now, and she told me once that, “suffering simply reveals what was already in your heart, that God wants to free you from.”

This year revealed that I tend to believe I can only be happy when everything is going well. When all seems right in my world. And when my world came crashing down around me–with a baby who needed multiple surgeries in order to eat, with 8 long months of wondering if he was okay, with postpartum depression that I just couldn’t pull myself out of, with hopes of a restful and restorative Sabbatical full of prayer abbeys and travel plans that got canceled, and with the daily anxiety of caring for 2 very little ones during a global pandemic–the Lord showed me joy that comes not from my circumstances but just from Him. Would I say I “enjoyed” it? No. Would I say there was joy? Absolutely.

I’m grateful we made that space to reflect. Without it I wonder if I would still be looking for joy in an easy, peaceful home + work life. Looking back has reminded me that the Lord has been doing new, better things than I knew to hope for, not in-spite of but actually through our suffering.

In a couple of days, Matt and I will pull out our reflection sheets. We’ll look at last year’s and we’ll look ahead to 2021. I wonder one year from now, what things I’ll laugh at from this year’s reflection.

If you’re looking to reflect and set intentions for the New Year I highly recommend this post here. If you’re ready to download your 2021 Reflection, you can do so below!