By Ashlie Miller

Are you reflecting on the year this weekend and looking forward to the coming year? Our calendar begins the year “January” as a tribute to the Roman god Janus, who, with two faces, looked at beginnings and endings, transitions, and passageways. You may reflect with great pleasure and look forward with anticipation of great things. Maybe you pray Psalm 65:11, “You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance.”

Perhaps you look back, however, with a sigh and sorrow. The late Queen Elizabeth II referred to 1992 as her “annus horribilis” (Latin for “horrible year”). A significant fire upon Windsor Castle and scandal after scandal within the marriages of her adult children certainly brought much scrutiny and criticism. The effects of the pandemic in 2020 may have made that year an “annus horribilis” for you, or perhaps you have another year (or two!) that you look upon with sadness and grief.

Back in 2018, when my husband and I were dealing with many issues in parenting, ministry and a new diagnosis of what would eventually lead to a terminal illness in my family, I recall equating the season to a “crappy year” (a word I am not prone to use freely). My husband, who could greatly empathize but is always optimistic, responded, “These are the types of years that can be fertilizer years.” Like the prepackaged bags of nutrient-rich plant food filled with their pungent odor, “fertilizer years” come into our lives to promote growth. Undesirable things like scraps, debris, decay and other unmentionables are the ingredients that make fertilizer. The same can be true of what a year can hold for us. It may be smelly and feel more like punishment or even judgment, but years like this can lead to self-analyzation and asking our Creator and Savior to reveal any hindrances to our growth and “lead us in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24). Maybe it is not a fertilizer year of our own making. We are in a flow of burdens we did not take on. These burdens placed upon us hopefully call others in the community of Christ to step in and help us carry them (Galatians 5:6). Sometimes, however, the weight is so crushing and personal that even the fellowship of believers is not enough to lighten it. It is a time to lean into the Maker and Sustainer (Psalm 55:22).

God is at work. He often works deep in the ground, below the surface, at the root. Though tilling, watering and pruning are all effective in our growth, eventually, a dose of fertilizer is necessary. They are things we would not ask for — relocation, death of a loved one, a new diagnosis of a chronic or even life-limiting illness, the loss of a job, death of a dream, a closed door — so many things that will happen in a broken world and can often pile up in a small window of time. Still, they are God-ordained in their timing in life.

It can be enough to throw up our hands in despair; for a moment, we may. Hopefully, it drives us to our knees, in submission, with hands of surrender and accepting our reality. There, in trouble, God meets us (Psalm 46:1-3). He communes with us (1 John 1:3). He lifts our heads (Psalm 3:3). He reminds us He has abundant love for us (Psalm 86:15).

As you reflect on your year, whether in joy or despair, I pray you see the goodness of God and look forward with hope and anticipation of growth. If not, I pray you reach that point by leaning into the Father. There is still time.

Ashlie Miller is certainly no gardener, but she cultivates her home with her husband, Chad and their five children in Concord. Email her at mrs.ashliemiller@gmail.com.