Tell me when it became normal that a retail shopper must weave through unnecessarily a long snaking, serpentine maze of double-walled tchotchkes just to get to an actual cashier?  I’m going to start bringing a pair of those horse blinders to pop on so I can keep my focus on not getting assaulted and overstimulated and basically bullied by inanimate objects into buying a bunch of silly crap while I just stand my turn in line at TJ Maxx. Why is that while we are actually shopping in a store for an hour we can logically (mostly) observe and assess the quality of our purchases but in 3 minutes of waiting to pay we impulsively succumb to purchasing weird ceramic animals and petrified chocolate bars and avocado shaped soap for someone’s birthday that is still six months away? Maybe we are just doing our part to keep actual stores in existence with our collective extra $4.99. Anyway. 

As I forgot my horse blinders on this past New Years Eve day, I stood in that line at Zurchers staring at stock piles of last minute things I never knew I’d never need and my eyes spied a package of party hats that looked like this. 

The package was 9 whole ridiculous dollars and I didn’t care because I’m a real sucker for asking – or tricking – people (in)to sharing deep thoughts. So, of course, at midnight, which we made it to, I asked our small gathering of guests to fill in the blank. Our youngest attendee, a darling little 6 year-old, simply said: Soccer. Oh, the precious innocence. I Will … Soccer! I guess you can do that when you aren’t 51 and have about a ¼ of a working ACL in your combined legs. One middle aged adult in the room said, I Will … Live like I’m 6. Which I guess means he Will Soccer too! Good luck, brave sir!

I didn’t really know what my answer was even though I was forcing this immediate clarity on everyone else. But it niggled at me. And niggled. Until the next morning when I pulled out the journal my mom gave me in 2022 and that I write in with fresh commitment every start to the year and finally figured out how to finish that sentence. For me.

I. Will. Not. Be. Afraid.

I Will Not Be Afraid.

Turned out I was afraid just writing the damn sentence. I believed, and still do, in those words theologically – that I don’t have to be afraid, of life or of death. This is because of another fill-in-the blank: “What If … ?” And that I know deep in the marrow of my bones that the answer is: “Then God.”  But I hadn’t realized until I stared at that piece of paper just how much this year had chipped away at the bedrock of this core truth of my faith. Of how afraid I had become. For good reason, too. When complicated grief and gaping loss and heartbreaking disappointment and unexpected betrayal and uncooperative bodies and merciless injustice happen, the rules of that “What If” game change. We scramble to get back the reigns, to tighten our grip on outcome, to control, push back, comprehend the unimaginable present and predict the future. What if … that? No, no, no. Not that, God. No, not that. That can’t be. That isn’t ok. That will hurt too hard. That is too. Damn. Much. 

I stared at that party hat and realized, even if that, I wanted off the spin cycle of panic and fear I had somehow slowly but totally jumped back on. Yes, grace to me as this was a natural human response to the universally brutal side of the human experience. And also? It’s time. And the way off this endless, pointless and painful ride requires accepting an open invitation to divine intervention. To trust that a good God is still at work in all the bad in my life, in all the bad in the lives of those I love and in all the bad the world that He created.

The “What if’s” are really big and stupidly small and every second of every day and wildly unpredictable and threateningly possible. But the Will? The Will is a choice, a steady keel in the storm. Sometimes this looks like an annual resolution, sometimes this looks like daily resolve. I Will choose over and over again despite infinite reasons to be afraid, to decide to believe in a reason not to be. Not just to protect myself from the fear of the future, but to protect my present peace.  

So. Bring on 2026. I guess sometimes impulse buys are worth it. In those 3 minutes, I bought back my Will. 

Thanks be to God, I’m going to let it set me free.