wishing you...pink skies?

Well, hello there, 2023. 

The start of a new year always makes me reflective – I know, you never would have guessed. I spend days beforehand mulling over all that the past twelve months have held, wondering what the next twelve have in store, and filling up arguably too many pages in my journal. 

When Saturday rolled around and we found ourselves in the final hours of 2022, I knew there was only one thing to do that would feel like the proper sendoff for a year that I couldn’t quite define. 

And so, I went on a walk. 

I think that I spent more time walking in 2022 than I have in past years combined. I’d never really had the time or space to make it a regular part of my routine before, but suddenly it was my sanity point. Last January marked quite possibly the worst my anxiety had ever been, and walking became a catharsis I didn’t know I needed. I’d pray, or talk to friends, or walk over to a nearby lake to read for a little while. It was such a point of healing for me. 

It only felt fitting to end the year in the way that had most grounded me. The sky was a brilliant blue, the sun warm on my face despite the crisp air. I set out, my phone silenced, to say goodbye to one of the weirdest years of my life in the best way I knew how. 

It had rained earlier in the day, and the world felt fresh, new. Like it was preparing for midnight’s strike right along with me. 

I bumped into my mom and sister at the halfway point of the walk, and we stopped to talk for a minute. “Remember when we went on a walk last year a few days before New Year’s and the sky was so pink?” I asked my mom. “I wish that it was like that again today.” There were streaks of gold along the horizon, but it didn’t look to be a sunset night – which was fine. The blue had been magical enough on its own.

 

We parted ways, and they kept walking while I hung back by the water for a little while. It was getting colder, but I couldn’t bring myself to mind. A piece of me just didn’t want to leave, as if staying by the lakeside would keep me in 2022, as if I could stave off the new year by lingering in the healing the old one had brought. 

Finally, I set off again through the old wooded path back home. It’s winding and steep, and always feels a little bit like stepping into another world.

When I emerged from the trees and looked up, the sky was streaked with pink. 

I actually froze in my tracks. No way.

But there it was – not identical to last year’s, but beautiful all on its own, feathery and light and painted like brushstrokes between the clouds.

I stood at the trailhead, my eyes locked on the sky, wishing that my phone could capture the sight as beautifully as it truly was. Deciding that maybe I didn’t mind it being just for me. 

Because that really was how it felt – like it had been put there just for me. 

As I’ve been taking the time to look back over all that 2022 held, I keep coming back to a single word over and over again – grace. In so many ways, 2022 was my grace year. It was a year I stepped into completely blind and more than a little terrified, and here at its end, I can’t help but marvel at all of the ways grace was laced into my story. The things I never expected, the people I got to have by my side, the healing I didn’t know could come. Grace upon grace upon grace, a God more gracious than I could fathom. 

And after this year of absolutely unwarranted grace, a moment with Jesus and a freshly painted sky felt like the sweetest conclusion to it all. 

I don’t know what 2023 will hold. But I know the One who sustains me, and I know that I’ll be carried through. 

That’s enough. 

As we step into the new year, I want to leave you with these words by Neil Gaiman – a wish for your year. I hope it’s a beautiful one, friends. 

“I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in this world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.”