You shall weep no more.

It seems to me like reflection is the new resolution for 2019. Maybe it’s just the crowds that I run with, but as I’ve scrolled through social media and mentally replayed conversations with friends about New Year’s resolutions and goals and ways that people celebrate the beginning of another lap around the sun, I’ve noticed a common theme of intentional reflection on the previous year. It makes a lot of sense to me that reflecting on where we’ve been should be a vital part of figuring out where we’re going. What’s the point of all these resolutions and goals if we never give ourselves a chance to celebrate ways we’ve succeeded and look honestly but gently at where we’ve fallen short of our own expectations or hopes? As Emily P. Freeman said in episode 61 of her podcast, “The Next Right Thing”: “Reflection reminds me I’m a human, not a robot. I have the capacity to not only make choices but to learn from choices I’ve made.” Reflection is a gift!

So I finally made some time (read: dismissed procrastination long enough) to do some reflecting of my own on Monday of this week. As I thought back on the early days of 2018, the first thing I remembered was that the Lord had given me a very specific passage of Scripture to meditate on and pray over myself throughout the month of January. He does this – one day I’ll be reading the Bible and a certain verse or group of verses will practically jump off of the pages at me. Then, for a significant length of time – usually a couple of days or weeks or even months – these words will come to mind almost constantly. They’ll be scripted in the pages of my journal and scribbled on the back of my hand and rolling off my tongue with shockingly little effort at memorization on my part.

And then…they will begin to powerfully and miraculously manifest in my actual life. Sometimes I immediately understand how a certain passage will make its way into my day-to-day experiences, but other times it will be weeks before the words start to make any sense at all. Most often, I know immediately what I WANT the words to mean, but I have a Holy-Spirit-instinct that trusting obedience means acknowledging from the get-go that His thoughts and ways do not always align perfectly with my own. And His are always, always better. This has proven true so many times in my life that it’s been a powerful motivator to read the Bible on a regular basis – I know from actual, personal experience that God speaks to me through His Word. If you don’t believe me, believe Him – the Word of God is indeed living and active (Hebrews 4:12).

The passage that He gave me at the outset of 2018 comes from Isaiah chapter 30:

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him. For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as He hears it, He answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide Himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.”

Isaiah 30:18-21, ESV

I was given this verse on January 3rd, 2018 – just days after returning to Arkansas from a visit to North Carolina for Christmas. At the time, I was working as a behavioral therapist for a private clinic that serves children with autism, and we got a generous two-week break for the holidays. It was a much-needed, well-deserved break for both the staff and students. But during my time in North Carolina, I’d realized that I needed much more than a two-week break. Over the last two years I’d had some really hard jobs – good jobs, meaningful jobs, jobs that I’d prayed for and was abundantly grateful for – but hard jobs nonetheless. I was mentally and emotionally exhausted almost constantly, and found myself sliding at a break-neck speed down the slippery slope of burnout.

I’d noticed the early signs months prior – so I’d made a concentrated effort to take better care of myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I found a coworker and confidante with whom I could speak honestly and vulnerably about this struggle that haunts so many individuals who work in helping professions. These changes were good and helpful, but they were not enough. As my plane left the Northwest Arkansas airport on December 20, 2017, I wrote on the first page of a brand-new journal:

Daddy, I sit on this airplane eager and expectant – a feeling that seems so 
foreign and familiar all at the same time.  I keep hearing You say that You will
meet me on this trip – speak to me and give clarity where there has been
confusion, direction where there has been seemingly aimless wanderings, and
joy where weariness has reigned for too long.

The Lord did indeed speak to me on that trip – through significant conversations with people who know me best and love me most, through the rich lyrics of both classic and modern hymns, through His Word and the words of people much smarter than me. Of course, He didn’t show up exactly the way I’d expected Him to…He rarely does. I went out asking for clarity and He sent me back with peace. Have you noticed that this seems to be a common form of trade in God’s economy? It is consistent with the way that He always seems to work in my life, too. First peace, then clarity. First peace, then a plan that is better than anything I could have dreamed up. First peace, then boom! The next step comes clattering into my lap and even though it’s exactly what I’ve been praying for, it almost always catches me by surprise.

One of the clearest memories I have from that trip to North Carolina is from a breakfast date that I had one morning with my dad at a cute little toastery in the University area. After I teased him about not drinking coffee anymore because caffeine is “bad for your health” (or so he says), he looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Sass, how are you? Are you okay?” Tears started pooling in the corners of my eyes and I was weeping before I could even begin to speak. I was okay. I was going to be okay. But I was tired. I was fading fast. I knew something needed to change soon, but I had this deep knowing that God was telling me to just wait. I knew that my parents could see it in my eyes, read the weariness written across my face…and from what I hear about parenthood, it probably made their hearts ache even more than mine. But I didn’t have an answer or a plan or any kind of comforting response to offer them…except that God was telling me to wait.

So that’s where I was when the Lord gave me this passage in Isaiah 30 last January – perched precariously on the verge of complete burnout, but mercifully enveloped in a surpassing peace that I didn’t really ask for. As I mulled over the powerful phrases that make up these verses, I quickly affirmed that God was indeed answering me, had been answering me in countless gracious ways since the first moment my cries of weariness had reached His ears (verse 19). And even though it felt (still feels) a little dramatic to say this publicly – it felt like I had been eating the bread of adversity and drinking the water of affliction for a long, long time (verse 20a). And even though I knew that my loving, gracious Teacher had been with me every step of the way, I was desperate for a fresh glimpse of Him with my own eyes, in my right-here, right-now life (verse 20b).

And wouldn’t you know that within a week of first beginning to pray this passage over my heart and life, I saw God show up in the most ludicrous, you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up kind of way. That is another story for another time, but know that He came through in a way that was more than worth the wait. He scooped me up out of the trenches of burnout and settled me into a place of renewed strength, fresh joy, and blessed rest. Hear me say this – it is always worth it to wait on the Lord. Always, always, always.

Flash forward to January 2, 2019 when I leapt up from my calm reflection on 2018 and Isaiah 30:18-21, grabbed my phone, and opened the Notes app to see my Teacher reveal Himself in a subtle, yet glorious way. Just one week earlier, sitting on a plane from North Carolina to Arkansas, I’d carefully recorded the story of how I didn’t cry while I was home for Christmas this year and somehow that felt curiously significant:

Except that now I’m starting to tear up because I’m thinking about all of the 
hard, hard seasons we’ve been through over the last years – me and God –
where I did a lot of crying. And I don’t think there was anything wrong about my
tears, even though there were many, many times when I didn’t have words or
exact reasons to explain them. But somehow it feels significant that I’m not
crying as much these days.  It feels like I’m ready. It feels a little bit like I’m
healed.

And as I re-read my own words, ironically with actual tears in my eyes (in case you haven’t noticed, tears are pretty much my body’s instinctive reaction to just about every kind of emotion), the Lord reminded me of His words in Isaiah 30, some of the only ones that I’d never quite made sense of:

Darling, you shall weep no more.

As we barrel into the new year, I hope you get some time to reflect on the last year, or maybe even just the last week. My prayer is that our gentle and loving Teacher will continue to reveal Himself to you and me in sweetly personal ways in 2019. Let’s make the choice now to expectantly look for Him.

with love and wanderlust,
Cassady