We’ve so enjoyed the year-end greetings we’ve been receiving in the mail recently, those check-ins that everyone instinctively sends out, to let everyone else know that they’re still alive and kicking. It’s a way to stay connected with loved ones who live far off, a way to look back and remember, a way to summarize a season.
Some years I’ve found it very easy to compare the events of my year with others. The accomplishments of kids, the lives of those who make a living writing stories, the books published and articles read and followers added. This kind of comparison can quickly start sucking all of the joy out of the many blessings I have actually received – smaller, perhaps, in my mind than they were in my heart at the time they occurred.
Our year had its share of difficulties, many unmentioned, even unresolved (perhaps like your year). And it had its share of joys, many unremembered, many potent and fragrant as an extinguished candle, held close for safe-keeping, like the family and friends we feasted with over Christmases here and miles from here.
In spite of all that conspired against true joy and peace in our lives, it has never been more evident to us that God breaks through and continues to do so in unexpected ways. Perhaps it is that resolve I’m sensing when I read the year-end stories of dear friends, a courage that says: whatever 2020 holds, we’ll make it through by the grace of God, as we did in 2019.
So what about 2019, then? Here are some personal highlights.
on the home front
In 2018, we moved into a new little basement house (The Grotto), living with my parents and sister. 2019 was spent making that house into a true home, learning to live with understanding and flexibility, and enjoying the three acres available to us in this place. I think a highlight of our year as a family was having an actual garden. We’re still feasting on canned and frozen produce we grew ourselves – mostly tomatoes, beans, and pickles.
But the biggest moment of the year was welcoming our fifth child, Digory John (affectionately known as #digdug), on Halloween. The days are passing too quickly for me to record all the delightful chaos occurring in our home, so you may have noticed my absence on this blog and social media the last few months. But maybe that’s for the best. It’s easier for me to be present when I’ve given up any expectation of having to display what’s going on in a feed. It’s not that I don’t want to share with you all the cute baby pics and notable events, just that I only have two hands and they’re always full to overflowing. And that’s okay.
on the writing front
In 2019, after an extended period of prolific writing since I started this whole crazy endeavor, I experienced my first real dry period – an extremely frustrating season where writing every word was like wrestling rocks out of an acre of hard soil. I share this as a milestone, because it taught me more than any other writing project, about myself and my dreams, about the craft of writing, and about the thing I believe every writer needs most: the courage to keep going. It’s not about recreating the moments of brilliance, it’s about showing up – even if you only write ten words.
But the whole year wasn’t this dry, of course.
In February I fulfilled a long-time dream of mine of getting something published with the Rabbit Room, a meditation on one of my favorite books of all time – the Wind in the Willows. Since then I had 20 pieces (poetry, non-fiction, reviews, etc.) published by some stellar online and print publications.
I wrote 30 blog posts this year for this site, including 12 sets of poems on the affections (here’s joy). Here are, not the top five, but five of my favorite posts from this year:
- we’re going on a bear hunt: loss for little ones
- jeremiah: eyes to see and a tongue to speak
- endgame: a war of fathers
- what I learned from 100 rejections
- contempt (four poems)
I joined an online poetry group in late 2018, and this group was the catalyst for almost everything poetic I’ve done this year. I went to Hutchmoot 2019, which was an eye-opening, affirming, and challenging weekend that left me comforted and excited about the future.
The biggest news of the year is that I published a book, and you can pre-order it here for purchase on January 14. (!!) I would not have been able to do this at all without the support of dozens of people – editors, encouragers, and family and friends who believed in me enough to make this a reality.
random things I enjoyed in 2019
And here’s a random list of things I enjoyed this year, in no particular order.
- This Day (Wendell Berry) – Sabbath poems, best read aloud, alone.
- Detectorists. Hilarious and kind and so, so British.
- Basics with Babish. I love to cook, and I also love to watch this guy tell me what and how to cook.
- The Whole Christ (Sinclair Ferguson) – A big spiritual theme of 2019 was reconciling law and grace, and this book hit the nail on the head.
- Mid-90s and Eighth Grade – The grace in these movies is no small feat, but both made me cry.
- I Am Easy to Find (The National) – Easily my top album of 2019.
- Mockingbird. Grace, grace, grace, and yes, more grace. I love their style, I love that they repeat themselves about the nature of the Gospel.
- This Tiny Desk concert.
- Chernobyl. Incredibly written and scarily prescient.
- Behold the Lamb of God livestream at the Ryman. This concert was pure joy.
- Patrick (H) Willems. My favorite cinephile, all around nerd, and contrarian, and his parents are adorable.
- Vulfpeck, just all of it. I can’t stay unhappy when I listen to these people.
- The Habit Podcast (Jonathan Rogers). It’s good to know there are others seeking to consistently work out their vocations as writers, and to glean from their compiled insights.
- Adorning the Dark (Andrew Peterson). This memoir and guide to the creative life was exactly the coda I needed to the year.
- The Mandalorian. Because I needed to believe that people still care about well-crafted, fun stories and cute puppets.
looking ahead
I suffer from a rabid hunger to fulfill creative impulses, and I don’t think 2020 will be any exception. I have too many crazy ideas, astronomic expectations of how many I can execute, and the blind idealism to actually accomplish some of them. 2019 gave me a glimpse of the possibilities of self-publishing, collaboration, and good old-fashioned hard work. I’m excited to see what comes next.
But these words have been ringing in my ears all December, and I think they’ve been ringing for a reason:
“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
Philippians 3:7-11
May this year see all of us know Him, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings more deeply than ever before.
All glory be to Christ.