Starting Over
BY: EMILY SANDERS
Our culture loves new beginnings. We love anything new really. We love fresh starts, clean slates, the bright and shiny. We love those things because we are the ones who choose. New Year rolls around and we get to decide what to take with us and what to leave in the past. We can choose to start the new job or move to the big city. We can choose to change course or turn around. But starting over is something different. Most of the time we start over because we are left with no other choice. It is out of desperation that we must enter something new. It’s when there is nowhere else to go, nothing else to do, it’s when everything has fallen apart that we are forced to start over.
I’ve spent the last 11 years serving alongside my husband in full time ministry. In 2016 that took us to Portland, OR to help plant a church. And while that included some of the sweetest moments of our lives, it was absolutely some of the hardest years we had ever experienced. We entered 2020 hopeful and excited. We had felt God stirring us to enter something new, and we were dreaming some pretty big dreams. When shut down happened, Cory, being a graphic designer and creative pastor, became the essential worker of the church world. While everyone else was slowing down, he was busier than ever. Our bright future, put on hold until a phone call came out of nowhere, offering Cory a job at his old high school back in Tennessee. It seemed like God was finally giving us the fresh start we were looking for.
We trekked across the country, our three kids in tow, and moved in with my in-laws. It was there, in the unfamiliar familiar, that our world fell apart. It was there, when all the distractions of spiritual hustle were gone, we were confronted; confronted by our open wounds that we had been ignoring, our marriage that had lost the closeness and trust, and our lifestyle that was completely unsustainable. We were broken. Everything was falling apart, crashing down, and up in flames. This was not a new beginning. This was starting over.
It felt like we were living in the aftermath of a forest fire. Sitting in what once was a beautiful forest full of strong trees, but now was nothing more than smoke and ashes. How did we get here? I didn’t know how to move forward. Truthfully, moving forward felt like a waste of time. Why would I want to go deeper into the dark, desert place? Because we had to. Because the way out is through.
It’s true. God met us in that dark, desert place. He held our hands and bandaged our wounds. He carried us when we couldn’t pick ourselves up. He walked with us through the darkness. Cory and I fell in love in the darkness. We learned to trust each other in the desert. We found healing there. And in the darkness, we started over.
I don’t believe that God leads us into brokenness and heartache. But I do wholeheartedly believe that he never wastes a single bit of it. He has not given back all that we lost, but he has given us something new, something good. My marriage is more than I ever knew it could be. And new dreams are being born into our hearts. Grief is still very real. I am often angry that things happened the way that they did, and I am sad that all the wrongs haven’t been made right. You may be on a journey through the dark, desert place. When you are certain that you will never see light again, when you have almost forgotten what the joy of warmth feels like, right when you are ready to give up, keep going. Keep moving forward. The way out is through. This starting over will turn into a beautiful new beginning. I know it. There is good here. Even in the darkness.
