This morning I almost couldn’t get out of bed. I wanted to spring out to greet the first day of the new year, but a thin layer of sadness kept me pinned under the covers and an image of staying in bed all day flashed through my mind. But no, I shook my head and cheered myself on, hearing the words of an old hymn, Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. I uttered a prayer saying He is bigger than rejection, bigger than pain-filled memories, and bigger than an absent sister’s birthday.
As I lay in bed, I read 1 Peter 4:12-13 about how difficulties in life are not strange but unavoidable– that God is steady in those moments, suffering with us but also taking us with him into his revelations of glory where nothing can touch us. I grasped these words and held them close. Each truth loosened the heaviness the way ice begins to relax when exposed to heat.
So I got out of bed, made the bed pulling the cover taut, went to the kitchen to make breakfast, diced the potatoes before sauteing them with bits of chicken apple sausage and watching them brown to a careful crisp, cracked three eggs that for once didn’t run into one another but remained their own perfect lagoon, and toasted slices of sour batard bread the kids and I had picked up from the local bakery in our red wagon. Despite the earlier lethargy, I somehow had the urge to clean and scrubbed the toilet, cleaned out the litter box, and vacuumed every room unable to stand the idea of beginning the year with crumbs and dust. I washed up, wore my new cashmere sweater, and put on a little makeup.
As I was getting ready for the day, I received a group text. My friend was bleeding and cramping. She had discovered she was pregnant three days ago and today lost the one she had just begun to cradle in her dreams. Then while they were in the ER, they got a call that her father-in-law who had been paralyzed and hospitalized for the past three months, had gone to the ER because he’d contracted pneumonia. But this morning, before anything went wrong, the Lord told her that he wanted her to be stable and steadfast, letting nothing disturb her inner peace and calm. He gave her Psalm 61:2 that reads, “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
I stood in the kitchen digesting this news when another friend texted to say Happy New Year and mentioned that she had heard “Revelation Song” this morning, which made her think of my sister. Whenever I hear that song, I also think of Jane and return to the day I had my first miscarriage. We were staying at a yurt in Mt. Shasta. I already knew the pregnancy was done and was waiting for my body to relieve what it had begun to build for a baby that was no more. In the middle of the night, I bled and bled and held a hot compress to my stomach as both my husband and sister made sure I was okay.
The next day, it was gloriously sunny and we lay on reclining chaise lounges on the surrounding deck. Jane had brought her guitar and was playing different songs, but I only remember “Revelation Song”. It was new back then, and we sang it often. But when she sang it that day, her voice sweet yet piercing, the song came to life and held me as if I were the baby. The song procured that moment so that whenever I hear it, I am there. I no longer feel sad at the memory of that day; what I remember most is her singing with her face tipped up towards the sky, I see my husband listening beside me, I feel the sun on my face, and I see the trees that surround us like a guard. That moment was my rock that was higher than me.
Jane would have turned 39 today. She would have emphasized that it would be the very, last, year, of her thirties with the same dramatic voice she used whenever she had a revelation, big or small. I’m beginning to suspect that every moment could be a revelation, every moment a lifting. All it requires is a seeking, an asking, and a listening. I’m listening, 2021. What do you want to say to me?
mijin kang 