Embrace the Promises and Possibilities of a New Year

Posted on Jan 14, 2020 Topic :
Posted by : Aaron E. Sharp

Pregnancies and new years have a lot in common.

The Similarities

They both represent new beginnings. They both are full of hope. They both get difficult faster than we would like. And neither of them ever goes according to plan.

Whether it’s the singing of Auld Lang Syne or seeing that faint second line on a positive pregnancy test, a new year is an awful lot like a pregnancy. And no matter what comes during a pregnancy or a new year, the one thing everyone can count on is that at some point things will go wrong in a way you never expected. These days, the Sharp household is bustling with four crazy kids under the age of eight, known affectionately to their parents as the Sharpnadoes. Those four pregnancies couldn’t have been more different. The second and third pregnancies (the two girls) both involved hospital bed rest. Every pregnancy involved elevated blood pressure, and my wife’s blood pressure was a concern as well.

Mixed in with those four pregnancies which produced beautiful children were two miscarriages, a lot of tears, and some bitter disappointments. There were also some things that looked bad which ended up being nothing at all. At the beginning of our first pregnancy my wife began experiencing some issues and the most likely result was another miscarriage, this only six months after our first one. A sorrowful night preceded a long drive to the doctor’s office the next morning where we did our best to brace ourselves for more bad news. But this time God did something unexpected, and where we anticipated silence, instead we were greeted with a thundering heartbeat. Eight years later I’m that boy’s basketball coach and he still hasn’t slowed down.

The Lesson To Learn

There is a very important lesson pregnancies have taught me about new years: no matter the planning, no matter the hard work, and no matter the well-thought intentions, I am not in charge of what will happen.

I’m not suggesting we don’t plan. Go ahead and paint the nursery, save for retirement, eat right and exercise, just don’t succumb to the illusion that you are the master of your fate. No one knows what loved ones will be gone next year at this time or what relationships will be in trouble. What we do know is that we have today. Most of us deal with the possibility that this new year could contain death, or cancer, or a lost job, or a divorce by simply ignoring that possibility. We figure if we don’t think about it we might not have to deal with it. But just because I’m not in the driver’s seat doesn’t mean that no one is. God’s plan for you and me this year is bursting with hope for us. It is left for us to trust Him with this year, even if we have no idea what that will look like.