Anchored to His Presence

I’ve pondered this post for some time. What can I say that would adequately describe my experience with 2020?

I entered 2020 with a level of optimism and hope. My sister was coming to visit us in Germany, her first trip to Europe. I had a women’s missionary retreat immediately after. I was set to be a speaker at an international conference in Slovenia. We were back home in Germany after a home assignment year, and while I didn’t quite know where I fit in the year-later dynamic of my community, I knew it would come.

2020 ended up being the year that I would truly need to “flee to Him for refuge” to cling to “great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary” (Hebrews 6:18b-19).

And boy… I had no idea the cost of entering God’s inner sanctuary. It’s free, yes! The curtain has parted and we can enter! By cost, I mean that as I flew into His courts for refuge from the 2020 storms, I suddenly could see my life in its contrast with His glory and purpose. 

I could see my brokenness. My dysfunctions. My filthy, sad rags. 

I could also see His smile. His welcoming embrace. His kind eyes. “Welcome daughter,” He said with words smooth like living water. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

2020 was a stripping of every comfort, every sense of reputation and title, every expectation. He took my dirty clothes, my desperately ragged sense of self, the lies that had been poured over my heart, mind, and spirit until I had integrated them as me… He took it all.

Very little of it had anything to do with Covid-19.

I needed His anchor, the strong and trustworthy anchor of my soul. A number of 2020 months felt like drowning. Like dying. My worthlessness, my smallness, and my insignificance were washed away and I was clothed with the peace, hope, and liberty befitting of the daughter of such a King. 

And it felt like death. It felt like life, and it felt like death. Like trying to breathe water as waves pound, relentless and without mercy. Yet all the while, those waves were like a rock tumbler… smoothing the edges the world had carved out of my weary soul. 

Stepping into 2020, I had no idea that the Anchor would literally save my life. That I would walk through the darkest night of the soul with the rope of His Spirit always wrapped around me. That in the clinging would come a stripping so drastic that I would step into 2021 raw and tender. But whole. 

As with every word I’ve ever been given, New Song, Hope, Comfort, Rest, Abide, Light, Fearless, and Peace, Anchor will join the row of banners that continue to remind, guide, and encourage me on the journey. Signs of remembrance of what I’ve overcome and the hope of what’s still before me.

That’s the dichotomy of 2020. 

It was devastating. Painful. Excruciating. There were days I was sure I wouldn’t survive. At times, it was lonely beyond belief (and I’m an introvert). 

But when I lift my eyes just above the pounding waves, and I follow the line of the anchor… I see the sun and feel its warmth. I see the faces of friends who held me up when the lies of my soul said I was alone. I can hardly write that sentence without weeping in gratitude.

I see every fear that would chase me down conquered at His command. Trembling before Him, submissive and weak. I see in the place of every stripped-away thing… something new and beautiful and better. In my own scrubbed-raw soul, I see light. LIGHT! A new day. I’m almost blinded by the brightness as He holds my hand and draws me into a land of promise. 

I’m shining too. 

You see, the cost of entering His sanctuary felt like dying. 

But it was living.

Living free, unhindered by the bags of lies I’d carried around as truth. 

2020 marked me. 

No really, I’m marked. 

This is the craziest cool story (for another time)… but a day before my most recent TEDx talk, this precious woman gave me an incredible gift. A tangible, visible, constant reminder of the hope that is steadfast and steady… the anchor of my soul. The next day I stood unnerved and fractured on a stage to talk about healing from traumatic experiences… and this mark grounded me. It reminds me of both what I’ve endured and the beauty that resulted.

There will be other storms. They will rock my world and I’ll probably feel like I’m dying again. 

But I will look down and remember.

But then God showed me that it’s SO much more. 

That presence is an invitation to enter HIS. 

To live in the safety I keep hunting for, the love I keep longing for, and the identity I’ve finally claimed. 

As I abide in His presence, I bring presence everywhere I go. It just comes. It flows from me into belonging and acceptance and not-aloneness to those around me. 

BRING. IT. ON. 

This is my delight and joy… to both be known (in His presence) and know (by bringing His presence). 

I am excited for this year. 

I’m still in some of the most painful upheaval and life change I’ve ever experienced… but my vision has been cleared and I can see. And what I see isn’t just what’s in front of me, but the hope and promise of a loving Father. 

I don’t know how you’re stepping into 2021, but I want you to know you are not alone. There is so much grace for the journey. So much love and mercy. Come as you are. I mean, if He can clean up this hot mess, He can clean anyone.