Goodbye Joy, Hello Truth

It's New Year's Eve, and I could not be more ready for this year to end.  To be honest, I feel like I have been dealing with ever bigger struggles since we first started having trouble conceiving in 2008 and I am terrified about the year ahead.  Meds and surgeries in 2009; IVF and rough pregnancy in 2010; CHD diagnosis, hospitalizations, heart caths, and open-heart surgery in 2011; miscarriage and failed IVF in 2012; IVF, rough pregnancy, CHD, rough delivery, surgeries, deaths, and hospitalizations in 2013; surgeries, hospitalizations, depression, and Patrick's death in 2014.  Six years of increasingly difficult experiences.  I am tapped out.  I don't know if I can handle any more.  I know that I said that last year, and that this year was much worse and I'm still standing.  It has become obvious that each time I have said enough, the universe has tested me and pushed me and showed me that, in fact, it could give me more and I would survive.  I'm also well aware that there are many worse things that could be sent my way.  I don't want them.  I am trying desperately not to challenge the universe.  I don't want to know how strong I can be.

At the same time, I don't want to focus on the negatives.  I want to focus on something positive, under the theory that we manifest those things on which we focus our energy.  As 2015 has approached, I began the task of figuring out my word for the year.  Let me back up--in my family, instead of make New Year's resolutions, we pick a word or attribute that we want to focus on, work on, or manifest in the year ahead.  I have previously picked words like discernment and abundance.  One year, I picked patience, before I knew better.  Last year, having had such a crummy 2013, I picked joy.  I wanted to manifest joy in my life.  Hahahahaha!  What I got was lots of opportunities to find joy in the rough and tumble world of hospitals and death.  As a result of the experiences this year, I've been (I think reasonably) scared of picking my word for 2015.  I felt like it needed to be "perfect"; that, somehow, if I could just pick the right word, I will have an easier year in 2015.

I thought I had finally managed to narrow it to three:  miracles, release, and connection.  Then, this afternoon, I read an article by someone else who was picking a word for next year.  The article included a list of questions to ask in formulating said word.  In asking myself those questions, I came up with a few other thoughts, including success, family, truth, comfort, and insight.  As I tried to decide which of these words would be the best one to select, it occurred to me that I was picking my word out of fear.  Fear that it would be hard.  Fear that it would bring more struggles and grief.  I was, once again, trying to outsmart God--as though that were actually possible.  So, I tried my best to get my head out of it.  I wrote the words on paper, folded them, put them in a hat, and picked one.  The result was unexpected.  Of all the ones I thought might come up, this wasn't it.  Maybe that's why it came up.  Who knows.  For good or ill, my word for 2015 is:

Truth

And as I thought about the word, I was reminded of a line of a covenant from a church I attended in my youth:  to seek the truth in love.  So, I wrote my own covenant for the year, to help keep me on track with my word:

Love is the spirit of my life,

And truth shall be its law.

I will seek the truth in love.

I will speak my truth with love.

And I will help others find their truth.

This is my covenant.

So, goodbye #Joy2014 and hello #Truth2015.  See you next year.