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The Year of Static Noise

Writer's picture: Alyssa JonesAlyssa Jones

2024 was a hard year.


By hard, here's what I mean...


It started with an unexpected but welcomed pregnancy, closely followed by an unexpected miscarriage. That was month one.


The following month brought me to the beginning of what I came to realize was a six-month battle with depression. I could argue it was sitting at the surface prior to this, but it certainly settled in in February.


These two months had us stretched thin, financially, too, which added to the emotional stress we were already experiencing. As you can imagine, this wasn’t helpful to our marriage. Spiritually and emotionally, I was barely above water.


Ushering us into the month of our first wedding anniversary was continuous conflict in our marriage. We were “ok,” but getting more and more disconnected as time went on because of unnecessary arguments, failing to give each other the benefit of the doubt, and sinking into our own isolated emotional states. That was March and most of April.


Have you heard how they say the process of buying a house and moving is one of the most stressful things for couples? Well, why not add that in, too…


We were house hunting from the end of March to the middle of May. If you know anything about the housing market at that time, you know that it didn’t make the process any less stressful. And every house we looked at would require an initial remodeling investment to get it where we needed it to be.


At the same time, I was in the middle of making a difficult career decision with financial implications that felt pretty illogical for us at the time.


In April, my youngest sister moved to a one-year residential discipleship program in Tennessee. I don’t have enough time or pages to explain the mental and emotional strain of that. It would continue to be an oddly balanced source of deep sadness and hopefulness over the coming months.


In May, we found the right house. We drove off to our family vacation in OBX after learning that our offer was accepted. This wasn’t totally cut and dry, but the Lord made a way for us. This was the first glimmer of something good in the year from my perspective, but it was drowned out by the anxiety I had about the process of home remodeling, the finances involved, and how we would manage the conflict we couldn’t seem to get around lately. These concerns were not shared by my husband, which somehow made it harder for me. He knew it would all work out. I couldn’t understand how he wasn’t feeling what I was.


In June, we closed on our house and the remodeling began. Now seems like a good time to mention that the Youth Ministry we took over together had picked up and now required more of us than we anticipated.


By July - at the risk of being too honest with you - I had thrown a paint roller across our new unfinished living room at my husband in frustration. The conflict that began in March had not subsided.


God was doing good things. I wasn’t feeling any of them. I was feeling a deeper sadness than I’d ever known complimented by anxiety that seemed like my new life companion and anger I didn’t know the the roots of.


I think that somewhere in the middle, I found myself pretty distant from God. Intellectually, I cared. Emotionally, I was indifferent. This is a dangerous place to be.


I was spiritually and emotionally exhausted in ways I had never before experienced. I was wondering if my marriage was going to make it because the recurring nature of some of our arguments triggered me in ways I wanted to escape from. I had no idea how we were going to do life with everything we had to balance. As I write this, the word that comes to mind is hopeless.


I was moving swiftly towards hopelessness, and I was too exhausted and indifferent to stop.


Until August 9th.


We were one week from moving into our new house. Waist deep in packing, finishing the open remodeling projects, trying to maintain our sanity…I don’t have words for how I felt by this point in the year, but I can tell you that none of them would be positive. I know that may seem odd because the Lord had met us in our sorrow over the miscarriage in so many ways, provided all we needed for the house, and sustained us as individuals and a couple through it - all things I vaguely recognized at the moment, though I see them clearly in hindsight.


All I can tell you is that on the night of August 8th when I took a pregnancy test three days before I was even late just because I had a gut feeling…my heart was not prepared to see such a boldly positive result.


But here it was…God gave us a new little life. My sweet Summer will one day know that her life is what God used to breathe new life into her mother.


I had a surreal day with the Lord the next day (August 9th). Maybe I will share the details of that another time, but for now I can tell you that God met me where I was spiritually and emotionally in such a profound way, that all I really know about the rest of the year is that it is unrecognizable compared to the first 8 months.


I could detail what happened in each of the following months. I could tell you that my marriage feels like a dream; a love I didn’t know I could experience. I could tell you that God has provided all that we’ve needed. I could tell you that I’ve seen healing in people and places, not just within myself, that I honestly don’t think I ever expected to. I could tell you that my pregnancy has been unbelievably easy and enjoyable so far, and our little girl is healthy. I could tell you that the career decisions I made are turning out to be more fruitful and life-giving than I anticipated.


No, it hasn’t all been sunshine and roses - I am not trying to script the next Hallmark movie. There have been some lows in there, still. I had some hard calls with and about Halle in Tennessee. I carried stress in some areas that seemed to cling to me. And for all the ways that life turned around, there was a lot of work involved. There was marriage counseling and strict budgets and hard conversations and tears and silent prayers.


With that said, gradually throughout the fall of 2024, everything changed. Everything.


But I have written all of this to tell you that, spiritually, there are still areas of struggle for me.


And that is why DeckDevotionals has been so quiet this year.


I promised God years ago this effort would only ever live off of the overflow from my spiritual life because I never wanted to put something inauthentic out there. DeckDevotionals wasn't started to broadcast static noise in the name of consistent content. As He speaks new life into my heart, I look forward to pouring it back out again.


For now, I just want to say that if you’ve had a hard year, or years, God can meet you there.


He can meet you in the middle of your mess heading toward hopelessness and turn things around in ways you can’t even articulate because that is who He is and what He does.


He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. - Colossians 1:17


In Him, ALL things hold together… including you and whatever mess you may feel like you’re in the middle of. And He will bring good from it all.


~ Alyssa

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