Anybody else feel like they’ve been drinking thru a fire hose for the last 12 months? 2020 didn’t give us many moments to relax, at least mentally. Psychologists call it “Crisis Fatigue” - living in such a fever pitch for so long make your mind eventually shut down.

Some of us deal with this feeling by running away, others by staying put. While there are those who run to conspiracy theories & promise to “bring back normal”, the truth is what is done is done. However, sometimes when we come to the end of our ropes, a funny thing happens: We want to live again. That came to a head for me as this New Year dawned. I spent most of the last 3 months of 2020 in the worst physical pain I’ve ever experienced. A herniated disc in my back pinched my sciatic nerve, leaving me in tears on the floor more than once. It left me feeling more than once that my life was over.

There was a guy in the Bible who had every right to feel like that – to find fault with the circumstances of his life – but he didn’t. Joseph was thrown into a pit and sold into slavery by his brothers. Every time he would seem to separate himself among the slaves, something else would happen – He spurned the advances of his boss’ wife and was thrown in prison – he helped get a fellow prisoner released, but they forget to tell the others about him. Yet thru it all, we find no record of Joseph EVER complaining about it. When he meets his brothers again in Genesis 50, Joseph reassures them …

Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

Some 3 weeks into this New Year, & I find a renewed appreciation for the simple. Walking my dog. Playing “horsey” with my granddaughter. Simply shoveling snow. And also, letting go of the things I have no control over – namely other people.

That’s why my word for 2021 is ENERGY. I endeavor to spend more of my thought life this year on the things which GIVE me energy, rather than the things that will try to rob it.