Two Year End Letters

As we approached year-end, letters and cheery photos started coming in for the holidays. I absolutely love this time of year, and love seeing their beautiful faces, hearing about their lives. At the end of the holidays I hole-punched each one and put it on a metal ring and hung it on the fridge. Instead of putting them aside, we flip it now and then, praying for and thinking fondly of the family that we see.

As I sat back thinking about what our letter would say for 2023, I couldn’t formulate it into ONE. 

There is the really good letter, and then there is the really bad letter. 

One letter: Loss of my folks’ vacation home, my kids’ home, and a tree on our home. Multiple cars have blown engines within a couple months. Big barn roof leaking & subsequent damage. House so cold we can see our breath. Grandbaby in the NICU the day she was born after a long, hard labor for my daughter. Crimes committed against my family. Many with tens and tens of thousands of dollars potentially attached.

The other letter: New grand baby and healthy, vibrant daughter. A lovely girl who has always been part of our family is now starting to share life more with one of my sons. Motivated, can-do angels who helped with the barn roof and furnace for pennies in the grand scheme. New housing – better cost/quality/size/location! – for everyone. Safe and healthy family. Nutritious food and happy animals & gardens. Gatherings. Solid church. Truth-filled, Spirit-led friends, counselors and trainers. God’s provision – no, abundance! – all around us. Perpetual thanks giving and peace and relief.

Both letters are equally real and full.

It reminds me of the great tension there is between so many things: love and justice. Freedom and conviction. Free agency and the Father’s will. Repentence and forgiveness. Sometimes it’s a great mystery to us, but the closer I get to my Father, the more I sit contentedly with comfort in the friction.

I often don’t recognize how “bad” it (circumstance) was until I see someone’s facial reaction when I tell stories. Or when someone says: Most people would break by what you’ve been through.

What?… Nah…

I hear you. But all of the GOOD is as far-reaching! And I just can’t settle long into considering the hard parts a measure in my life. The goodness of God far exceeds even the hardest things. I used to say this kind of stuff often, and sometimes it may have been self-talk (still legit). But it isn’t talk anymore. My first dramatic experience of the reality of it, tho’ I have experienced minis all of my life, was when I left my abusive family. And then again when Scott was on his death bed. And again when a church I trusted proved to be a dangerous place.

I remember when that place taught that when bad things happen you should consider if it’s punishment or correction from God. My biological mom believed in this false doctrine and used it often as well. It kept me in fear of doing the wrong thing. I’ve since learned (remembered!) my Father’s heart – that He is FOR me. His correction is not confusing or dark or scary. In fact, I learned from my Dad and the way he responds to hardships; My Heavenly Father’s correction is amazing and fuels my passion in Christ!

Every time I have felt the Lord’s correction it was deeply immersed in protection and love. It left no room for doubt or fear. It brought security and hope and great comfort. It wasn’t unique from His constant Presence, in the good or in the hard.

It’s His Presence that has calmed my own thoughts and feelings, changed who I am and how I respond.

Back in the day I wrote a blog* about how polarized my perception was vs. others that we did life with. On the same farm. With the same general experiences. My biological mom would get so upset at me for “sugar coating” things to friends, and I spent a lot of years feeling like I may be a liar because of it. But I knew what I shared was TRUE and accurate. Even tho’ I knew her views were, too. I knew it was about perspectives (and that’s why this blog was named Summers Perspectives, because I knew they were sometimes quite opposing to others who may have gone through the same thing/s), and it wasn’t until many years later that I realized it wasn’t a ME problem, seeing the good first and foremost. I then felt guilty for a few years following that. Why would I have such a positive outlook and experience, and not her or others? Why am I so lucky?! There’s a lot there to unpack… And I won’t here or now. But God has been gracious to remove feelings of guilt from me about sharing my testimony and living in His goodness. The voice of condemnation of sharing Good News is now ignored by me.**

So I guess what I’m saying is, when a tree falls on my house – all I can do is laugh (after I know everyone is safe). Laugh at God’s perfect timing of a friend showing up immediately after it happened, having no idea it happened, who spent hours helping with immediate needs alongside sweet neighbors and my sons. Laugh when Nathan comes home to use his excavator (he’s been wanting for years, but we all supported the splurge-purchase of only a couple weeks prior) that was essential to saving our house. Laugh when the adjuster is trying to be sympathetic and I just tell him we’re blessed by the perfection of the spot it fell and how it fell… mere inches from our heat pump and windows and main living space, and atop heads that weren’t in bed sleeping. My tone is adventure! not failure.

When my Dad & Mom’s house burned down in 2022, their “who cares” attitude was palpable. When they lost their next home this past year, it was the same. My heart broke for them, but when theirs didn’t, I realized mine certainly shouldn’t either.

Life is always going to bring us surprises. Many of them hard. Some of them potentially devastating. But this life is a vapor. It will be gone in an instant, and will only be better on the other side. How I give my heart to each moment matters. I can delve into deep grief (and will sometimes!), or I can sit deeply in my Father’s good, kind, nurturing bosom. Always sharing the good news. Even in the tragic.

If you are willing to look for Him, He will reveal good news always. That is a promise.

I’d encourage you to look around you and consider the heart of this kind of Father. Consider if the men in your life represent this heart. If you have put them in a position of spiritual leadership and they do not represent this, I’d challenge you to consider how you want to invest your heart into their leading in some areas, and how you can perhaps share Good News to them with the help of others who know Christ in this way.

“We only lose our rest when we lose sight of the Lord’s bounty in our life.” – R.R.

It’s been a good year.

*I just realized that it’s in my Drafts folder. It was [years and years] before I was being more open & honest about my relationship with my biological mom.

**a similar voice of being poo-poo’d for sharing good news: when others speak condescendingly of how people portray themselves falsely by only showing the good parts or boasting about their husbands on social media. As if it was prideful… Psht! I don’t stress about these comments anymore. It says more about their jealousy and pain than it should do to limit my good news. If they are struggling with my content, I hope they simply remove it for their sake. Not attempt to silence positive messages.