Oh how 2026 didn’t open the way I thought it would.
The call came through about 8:30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. I excused myself from the group of friends I was with to take the call from my Dad. An unfamiliar voice greeted me. An EMT was calling on his phone to let me know they were taking my 85-year-old dad to the ER with concerning O2 sats and extremely elevated heart rate.
Within hours it was clear he had suffered a cardiac event. His heart was in A-flutter, and he would be admitted. My husband and I left the ER just in time to get home as the calendar flipped from 2025 to 2026. Happy New Year.
Fast forward several days, and I am sitting in the hospital with my dad as we come to terms with the new normal: multivessel heart disease and end stage congestive heart failure. There are blockages everywhere; stents, balloon, or bypass surgery are not options. He is weak, but able to rest comfortably. We are in a waiting game. Waiting for more evaluations; Waiting for more information; Waiting for next steps. Wondering. Waiting and wondering. Walking more quickly now toward the finish line of his extraordinary, Christ-filled life.
It always astonishes me how tiring it can be to be a caregiver when you have someone in the hospital or recovering from surgeries or waiting for diagnoses. Our little family has had some experience with this, so you would think I would know by now the emotional and physical fatigue that comes with just being nearby and available while someone you love is in the hospital. But it surprises me every single time.
I had thought I might try to do some work and writing while my Dad is resting and waiting, so I keep lugging my laptop around in a backpack. I’ve done this for several days. The sort of deep writing work I originally envisioned going on in January may not happen for a while. My brain isn’t entirely mush, but it is it entirely creative or focused either.
Fast forward a few more weeks, and I have run an emotional gauntlet of Dad going from hospital to rehab facility to finally settling in an assisted living community here in town. In the past days I have done all the things needed to empty my Dad’s former apartment, store items, set up his new place, plus managing the medical and financial paperwork and tasks that accompany such transitions. IYKYK.
I’ve wrestled in this past 25 days with the timing of things. I came into 2026 with some specific personal goals and writing goals for the first quarter of the year. The reality of how I came into this year is something else altogether.
Most of the time, I am at peace with the demands of the past weeks and the reality of putting a lot of things "on the shelf." Sometimes I feel behind. I am grateful that God has been wooing to realize the times I feel “behind” are opportunities for trusting Him to shepherd the timing of things He has called me to. I just have to trust that He knows what He is doing. His ways are not linear, not always efficient, and they don’t always make sense.
But I know He knows what He is doing when the curve balls and tests and trials and hard things come. He is faithful. I’ve seen it again and again. But in the overwhelm and fatigue of my current situation I can forget.
I have to stop and remind myself of His faithfulness.
I don’t know what your January has looked like. I pray it is all going to plan. But however it is unfolding, I know that God invites you to remember that He is faithful for all of your things. All of your life—your mental life, your emotional life, your physical life, your work life, your family life, your spiritual life. All of it. All of your plans and goals and resolutions. He is in the midst of it all.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV
If you are facing something akin to the whirlwind I have been in lately, you might be looking for a balm to your soul. You might need to be reminded of who you are in Christ. I invite you to check out Fully Known, Fully Loved: A 30-Day Journey of Your Identity in Christ. It is a simple, powerful path through truth that resets a soul weary or worn down. Maybe it is just what God has for you to be renewed and refreshed.