Here we are, facing another new year and hoping for the best.
I find it amusing to remember how excited I was for 2020 and how different the year was to what I expected. One of my resolutions was to travel to more places than I had ever traveled in my life, and voilà, the joke tells itself.
Well, it was a very interesting year, to say the least; and some of us find ourselves considering whether or not we should get our hopes up for this year. Where exactly do you find yourself as you step or perhaps tiptoe into this year?
2020 was a year where I began a journey of learning to trust. Trust is one of the most valuable things today; It is hard to build, and easy to lose. When you have trust issues, you are suspicious of everything and everyone, you tend to assume the worse of circumstances and of people’s intentions. Lack of trust is a primitive survival defense mechanism and is good for keeping us alive but it fires back on your quality of life, especially in the area of interpersonal relationships.
There’s a piece of scripture that has been resonating in my head quite often in the last few months, but let me share some stories to add some context, otherwise, this wouldn’t be a personal blog.
Two years ago, at work on a very normal day, I received a phone call from my dad. He sounded nervous, which is very rare. He first asked me if I was busy, which again, he rarely did. And after I asked him, ‘what’s going on?’, I learned that my mom had chest pain and was on her way to the hospital. I immediately felt a rush of catecholamines and my head immediately foresaw the worst-case scenario. It seemed obvious that my mom was having a heart infarction. That very same day, my brother and I traveled to where my parents live and spent a few days helping my mom getting transferred to a hospital with a larger capability. A couple of weeks later, she was discharged with two stents in her heart.
I was relieved when she finally was out of the woods and what I most feared wasn’t the outcome. Nonetheless, I noticed something happened to me over the following months. Every time my dad would call me, I would get that same feeling I felt when he called me that day. It got pretty bad to the point that I had to ask my dad to text before calling, and only call me without notice if there was an emergency happening. I’ve never really liked unexpected phone calls. Like most millennials, I prefer text messages over phone calls for casual things. After all, if you call someone, they have to stop whatever they’re doing to answer the phone call. Now I am working my way to being more phone call friendly.
At the beginning of the current pandemic I was pretty optimistic, but as people began asking me about it I began asking myself, ‘should I be worried instead?, because everyone seems worried’. At first, we didn’t know much about what was going on and an endless feed of news on social media didn’t help. I think anxiety surrounding this situation got escalated out of proportion, or don’t you remember the toilet paper crisis? Thinking about that now is hilarious. It didn’t get too bad in Mexico though, we generally tend to be more chilled out and optimistic, and sometimes more negligent too, just being fair.
While I was assessing the severity of the pandemic and trying to measure my response, fear and worry attempted to creep in. I began worrying about the frailest in my family and loved ones. As a firstborn, that’s just part of who I am.
As I prayed about this whole pandemic situation and my fears associated to it, I felt reassured that everything was going to be okay. I believed it and I am grateful that until now, no one in my family has died of covid. Every time I learn about someone getting sick, I’ve been able to respond in a more measured manner.
Recently my dad became ill. He demolished a concrete roof from his house in Sonora and he stubbornly didn’t wear protection. The very same day he attended a funeral where he was exposed to covid. Since this happened at the same time, it’s hard to say whether he had chemical pneumonitis, COVID, or both. He has had lung issues before and I think that’s why his response was beyond flu-like symptoms. He had an insidious cough that wouldn’t let him sleep, with O2 sats dropping to 92%. He did get the PCR test and a CT scan and both were positive. Thankfully, despite not looking very well, his condition didn’t deteriorate further than that and he is now almost completely recovered, with just some exertional fatigue left.
My response this time was, I think, better than before. Although I was tempted to succumb to fear, I held on to the reassurance that everything was going to be okay. I got a little emotional as I discussed with my mom whether or not I should travel to be with them through it. I honestly wasn’t afraid of getting covid myself but I felt that if I left immediately to go see them, It would be a decision driven by fear as if I needed to go say goodbye to him before he died. So I decided to stay home, monitor the situation by daily phone calls, and instead, travel later to spend Christmas with them celebrating his recovery.
For a few months, I’ve been hearing a verse of scripture in my head over and over again, and I’ve taken it as a promise to myself. Please, read the whole chapter slowly with me.
Psalm 112, NLT
Praise the Lord!
How joyful are those who fear the Lord
and delight in obeying his commands.
Their children will be successful everywhere;
an entire generation of godly people will be blessed.
They themselves will be wealthy,
and their good deeds will last forever.
Light shines in the darkness for the godly.
They are generous, compassionate, and righteous.
Good comes to those who lend money generously
and conduct their business fairly.
Such people will not be overcome by evil.
Those who are righteous will be long remembered.
They do not fear bad news;
they confidently trust the Lord to care for them.
They are confident and fearless
and can face their foes triumphantly.
They share freely and give generously to those in need.
Their good deeds will be remembered forever.
They will have influence and honor.
The wicked will see this and be infuriated.
They will grind their teeth in anger;
they will slink away, their hopes thwarted.
I love that part where it says “They do not fear bad news; they confidently trust the Lord to care for them.” and that’s the part that has been resonating in my spirit continually. I am learning to trust God, people, and myself while unlearning fear of bad news.
I would like to invite you to meditate on and take this scripture as a promise to you as well. I want to invite you to put your trust in The Lord. He is a good father and He takes good care of his children. His children don’t have to live afraid of bad news, but they can walk with a smile on their faces.
Does this mean that we’ll never receive bad news? Not at all, Jesus said that in this world we will have troubles (John 16:33), He also said He’ll be with us always(Matthew 28:20). Therefore, living afraid of bad news that might or might not come is an unnecessary evil.
We, as humans, tend to worry about things we cannot control. We miss out on a lot of fun and forget to enjoy our today. We get as many insurances as we can. You can insure pretty much anything: electronic devices, flight itineraries, your car, your house, unemployment, etc. While these insurances aren’t bad on their own, I think sometimes they help us put our trust in the wrong place. Believe me, if there was insurance for male pattern baldness I would have purchased it 10 years ago.
“Living afraid of bad news that might or might not come is an unnecessary evil”
A few days ago, out of curiosity, I did a mini poll on my social media stories asking people if they were excited about the new year, and from the people that replied, about 30% responded negatively. I found that to be very interesting but also very understandable. John Mark Comer quotes in his recent e-book named “We Don’t Know What’s Going to Happen and That’s Okay” that the World War 2 generation “was the most relaxed and happy generation in American history” and that “happiness levels peaked in America in the decade after the war”. He suggests that we have an opportunity to thrive in “Holy Uncertainty” and I think He’s right. Our generation’s resiliency muscle is being exercised and grown. Well, at least I hope mine is.
I don’t want to be insensitive as to why you might not be excited about this new year. I am sure you have many reasons for it. The last year was not easy. Yes, some people might look down on those who have used the word ‘trauma’ to describe 2020 because perhaps they have experienced things like war or other catastrophes, but that doesn’t invalidate yours or my experience.
There’s a Russian saying that I thought was Mexican because we use it a lot and it says: ‘Hope Dies Last’. I have hope, I am choosing hope and I pray that I will never lack hope for the future. I think hope is one of the most beautiful things that make us human. Hope is powerful, it can create futures. I don’t want to get tired of saying the word ‘hope’. Hope, hope, hope.
Whether you’re tiptoeing or confidently stepping into 2021, I want to deliberately encourage you to get your hopes up. Some would consider this foolish, but I think is not. Believe me, if I could prescribe you a hope infusion, I would.
Pessimism can be considered to be the smartest and safest attitude to take by many because if poop hits the fan you’re at least prepared, but I don’t think a pessimistic life is a good life.
So this is what I propose to you, let us enter 2021 confidently, with our hopes up, pronouncing life, living free of fear, practicing wisdom, and abiding in love. Does that sound good to you? It sounds good to me.
Let’s do this!
Happy New Year!