What did you learn about God in 2022?

Mari Pablo, Amber Haines, Leah Libresco and others answer

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In 2022, I had a fundamental shift within myself + my faith. I can confidently say that I’ve never learned so much about God in a year’s time as I did the past 12 months. I don’t mean in the masters of theology way, although those can be useful and I love our church’s rich tradition of intellect. I mean in the way you feel when you were always kind of friends with someone, but one day you sit down and drink coffee for 6 hours and learn their life story and share your heart and walk away feeling as if your soul has been impacted. Amen?

Inspired by this, I reached out to a few friends to see what they, too, learned about God in 2022. Here are their answers.

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Katie Prejean McGrady

Writer, speaker, and host of the Katie McGrady show

God showed me his kindness this year. It wasn’t necessarily that I needed to be reminded that God is kind, so much as I needed to come to realize that kindness is not simply “being nice.”

Nice is letting someone cut in front of you at the self-checkout at Target because they have 2 things while you’ve somehow accumulated 18 items in your cart. Nice is the passing compliment “I like your shirt” to the coworker in the office. Nice is merely a simplistic “not being mean” approach to the people around us. It comes and goes. It’s a passing, fleeting politeness. Nice is just that: it’s nice.

Kindness is deeper. It is personal. Intentional. Persistent. Unwavering. Kindness is the response given when one sees another, for all that they are, and knows what is needed.

And over the course of this year, God has showed me his kindness. He’s shown me his personal attention to even the quietest, most hidden prayers deep in the recesses of my heart. He’s steadily walked beside me without ducking and covering at the first sign of chaos. He’s held my hand tightly, like a mom guiding her child through an amusement park crowd, as I’ve navigated hard decisions and made even simple plans.

Kindness is the standing beside, and kindness is the being there. And God has shown me his kindness, by showing me he is here.

In what was perhaps a very benign and boring year, especially compared to others that included job changes and new babies and major hurricanes, 2022 was not all that crazy. We plodded along, kids in school, work quite steady, a home that no needed major repairs. Some might say the only exciting thing we did was decide to not get a second dog.

And yet, that ordinariness was sometimes heavy. That usualness, as familiar as it felt, could be burdensome. The imminent changes coming, delayed and just looming off in the distance, seem to be creeping closer, slowly. The humdrum plod makes the feet feel like lead.

And God was there. Is there. Is here. Kindness stays. Kindness holds closer. Kindness sees.

God showed me this year that he sees me. He sees me not just because he gets something from me. He sees me because he has something for me. And he stays beside me, and so tenderly loves me, because he is kind.

God showed me his kindness this year. He’s so much more than just some nice God. He’s a good God. A knowing God who longs to be known. A kind God, who never steps away, but always stays. 

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Desiré Findlay

Rosary maker, dancer, and artist

I learned to see things differently after I moved across the country and was struggling to make ends meet. I had been applying for jobs nonstop since August, but it was November and I had only managed to secure a few interviews. It was exhausting and frustrating, but most often it was painfully disheartening.

I turned to God in prayer one night after another rejection. Both God and I knew I was hurt, but instead of starting with heartache, I began by acknowledging what I was grateful for. In doing so, I realized everything was still taken care of even though I had been struggling. My mom was buying my groceries; my sister gave me rides at times; family and friends sent cash when they could; and my best friend would send boxes with the essentials, often adding items I hadn’t asked for but still needed.

In addition, I was somehow finding an endless source of determination. I became a substitute teacher as I continued seeking full-time employment; I found ways to purchase larger items I needed through payment plans; and I started a small-scale Etsy shop for additional income. I always knew God to be generous, but now I was seeing God’s generosity in new ways - through other people’s generosity, and through the very abilities God gave me which led to my perseverance.

Besides growing in gratitude, I also gained insight into the lives of people struggling to find employment. It is incredibly stressful, and I was doing this while supporting only myself. I couldn't imagine feeling this way and having to provide for a family. I saw firsthand how someone can meet all the qualifications for a job and still be rejected repeatedly. Not only that, but I have a solid support system, and in just three months I was already wrestling with bouts of despair.

I don’t know that I learned a lot about God this past year, but here’s what I learned from God: God gave us one another to lean on. Sometimes it’s you who will need a shoulder, and sometimes you’ll be the one lending it. If you find yourself struggling this year, it’s okay to ask for help; and if you find yourself with means this year, please keep in mind those who are experiencing difficult situations. May we give and receive God’s warm embrace like we were made for doing just that.

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Amber Haines

Writer

What I learned about God in 2022 is that there is so much more to my relationship with God than all the work to be a Christian, so much more to formation than the suffering, and I have to thank the God of the long dry spell for showing me such a thing. I can’t tell you how things became so dry or where I stopped paying attention along the way. I only know that my propensity to see my own work as an exchange for love has never helped me. Any time my own good works become the source of my nourishment, communion turns to ash in my mouth. My own work isn’t working. My commitment to the motions isn’t enough.  I think a worker is worth her wage, and so that’s what I do (working for love), and even beasts at the plow stop to graze, but when it had become all bit and bridle and pulling dragged feet, I had to stop and admit that I’m parched. 

The Trinity is the God of Mercy, and it can be a mercy to wake up hungry, like a big sick kid, asking for something good and warm from mama’s kitchen.  I had to be honest about my hunger. It is God’s mercy for me to realize that I’m sick because I forgot that I am already loved. It's elementary. The Trinity still gives us the milk when we need it. The Trinity is the God of Woo. The Trinity is the God of warmth and delight on unplanned paths. 

I saw a bright red fungus lick up from the ground the other day, and I flipped over a rainbow of mushrooms to see their undersides. Frost flowers bloomed across the field. There was a stack of perfect oranges in a bowl. I studied them all. It is this goofy and lovely to be the kid, to learn to delight in little things like the Trinity delights in me. 

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Mari Pablo

Speaker and writer

This year was one of chasing waterfalls! From Georgia to Ohio to the incredible Niagara Falls.  I’ve always loved how vast and endless waterfalls feel, and how amid the loud sound of rushing water there is stillness. It amazes me that even the smallest drop of water contributes to the grand totality of movement, beauty, and mystery. Looking back on 2022 is like a waterfall, each experience contributing different lessons about life and God.

God is a God of the unexpected…. I entered 2022 waiting with certain hopes and expectations, waiting for the beautiful sites. Situations that I was expecting to happen didn’t happen, but multiple other things did. This year my godson, who was given weeks to live, celebrated his first birthday; through work and ministry, I traveled the most I have ever traveled in a year; and after 5 years my sister can finally say she is cancer-free!

God is creative… This year I turned 33 and finally entered my Jesus Year! I had been planning this party for years and invited everyone to come dressed like biblical figures. We “walked on water” with the help of paddle boards, and ate Bible-themed food, all set in front of a backdrop of Jerusalem. What I wasn’t expecting was that it would increase a newfound desire to strive for holiness in a deeper way. God used what at first seemed silly to point me to something transformative.

God is never done…  Like all years, 2022 brought its set of challenges.  I underwent my 15th surgery which required me to face many childhood fears that I didn’t want to address. Because of that, I dove deeper into counseling and spiritual direction. Even in the midst of physical and spiritual healing, days later, I was able to give a testimony about how the Lord changed my life at the very place where it all started many years ago.

That place contains one of my favorite waterfalls. While there, I decided to hike down to the waterfall.  Taking it all in, I was reminded of the long journey that I've been on with the Lord and how He is not done yet! This is what I love about our faith, because some parts are a mystery, and this is definitely a journey there is so much more to discover! There are more opportunities for healing, more opportunities to trust, always more to surrender, more surprises to come, more of Him doing the unexpected or the expected but in completely different ways. Yet these big moments are made by the little daily yeses, the little drops of water that will build up into a total self-emptying, Kenosis. At the bottom of the fall there is a plunge pool of graces that the Lord has in store. The God who gave it all for me is asking me to give it all to Him, with all the stubborn kicking and screaming and arguing… I hope to keep saying yes!

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Emily Stimpson Chapman

Writer

That is an almost impossible question to answer because I feel like our poor, patient Lord is always having to teach me the same lessons over and over again. We go in a loop, He and I, with God revealing some deep and beautiful truth to me and me feeling changed by it. But then I get busy and overwhelmed and fall back into old habits of thinking and acting, and He has to remind me of it all over again. Change still happens. Growth still happens. But it is so slow and incremental. Almost imperceptible at times. And that is frustrating. Surely, after so many decades of following Him, I should know more. I should be better. 

But, God is patient. And the voice in my head that excoriates me for my forgetful ways (and for all my other failings) is not His voice. He never deals with me as harshly as I deal with myself. He is gentle with me. He is compassionate. He knows me, and knows I don’t need harshness. I just need Him. And I suppose that’s the most important lesson He taught me this year. And last year. And the year before that. It will probably be the most important lesson He teaches me next year, too. I suppose if I have to be caught in a loop, this is the best one to be caught in.

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Leah Libresco Sargeant

Writer and speaker

I had a baby in January, which meant that my time with God has often been time spent with two girls sitting on my lap or climbing up my legs. What I'm trying to learn is how to find stillness in God in the midst of cheerful chaos all around. I very much appreciated Robert Cardinal Sarah's The Power of Silence, but silent, contemplative prayer is very challenging for me, even before children. With them, it feels like I have a pass, but I don't want to flinch from this invitation.

I think about how our family prayer is the most frequent example of prayer the girls see, and I come back to a lesson I got from The Little Oratory—children learn as much from our stillness as from our explanations. At home and at Mass, I try to occasionally be still with God, so that my girls can see me being reverent, rather than only hearing me explain the reasons for reverence.

Silence is still a form of prayer I struggle with. The way I love best to pray, including sometimes as a family, is through song. During the height of the pandemic, we sang more together when churches were closed. Now, I am trying to create opportunities to sing more with others, since, for me, singing is always a ladder to prayer. I get to begin in beauty, and I am pulled along by the song, rather than overthinking my own choices about prayer.

I encounter God in more scattered ways, but in each moment I find Him, I appreciate the reminder that He is always there—the questions is just how often and for how long I rest in His presence and listen to His word.

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Karianna Frey

Writer and speaker

One of my favorite quotes from Pride and Prejudice comes near the end of the book. Spoiler alert for those who have not read this classic, it is a phrase spoken toward the end of the novel: “I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.” Reading these words sent my teenage heart a flutter, imagining a handsome suitor speaking those words to me in love and adoration. 

This phrase came back to me this year, and not in the context of devoted love. Rather, it came back when I realized how burned out I had let myself become and in the midst of that burn out, how much of a background character God had become in my life. For our family, 2022 was a year of excitement and change and endless things to do. As our days and hours filled up with more and more things to do and tasks to complete, the connections, the interactions, and the cement that holds us together as a people and a family began to erode, and that was when I realized that the burnout was upon me before I knew it had begun. 

If you are like me, when life gets to be too much, God can be one of the first to get pushed to the side. Rather than running into the everlasting arms for rest and comfort, I started to see God as another task to complete, another box to check. What I learned about God this year is that He does want more for me. He wants more than just a cursory glance in His direction once a week. He wants me to know that He is always there, waiting because His love for me is infinite. His love for me is one built on connection, a connection demonstrated by His coming into human form, to be born of a mother, to be raised in a family, to experience friendship, sadness, anger, and even burnout. 

What I learned about God, this year, is that my relationship with Him is always changing and that while I may not be able to fix the hour, spot, look, or words, I am His and He is mine. 

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Chloe Langr

Writer and host of Letters to Women

Almost every evening for the past year, my husband and I have prayed night prayer together before crawling into bed. Praying the Liturgy of the Hours alongside the Church and with my husband has been transformative. But one of my favorite parts of night prayer is its repetitive nature. Week after week, night after night, we repeat the same prayers, revisiting the same themes, reflecting on the same Psalms.

Yet there is always a new depth that the Lord invites me into through those now-familiar words. This year I learned (and re-learned) that God is a patient father.

Every Monday, night prayer starts off with the same antiphon: “Oh Lord, our God, unwearied is your love for us.” So many Monday nights, I’m praying those words in between my own sighs of weariness. I’m already battle-worn and it’s only the first day of the new week.

Too often, I assume that the Lord loves me in the same way that I love him, and the same way that I love those he’s entrusted to me. I love my spouse and am eternally grateful for the gift of parenthood with him. But as an introverted mother of two energetic toddlers, there are many times that I’m aching for a break.

And every Monday night, the Lord gently reminds me that he never grows weary of loving me. He’s always patiently present—even when moments of desolation make it seem like he’s walked away and taken a break.

When suffering came this year as we buried family member after family member, he didn't tire of my endless questioning, my persistent “why” in the middle of the night.

When my husband and I started down the long road of adoption, he lovingly and patiently provided sign after sign to reassure my doubts about his will and his goodness.

When anxiety and worst-case-scenarios consume my thoughts, he’s beside me to comfort me, again and again. And in the early mornings when it’s still dark, he rises with me and sits beside me in prayer—even if it’s just for a few minutes before my toddlers are up for the day.

Ever present, he is a good and patient father. And he never grows weary of us. 

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Your turn. Let me know in the comments—what did you learn about God in 2022?

On My Nightstand 

• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: There’s 11 days left of Christmas, which is plenty of time to read this classic novella! I read it every year and it never fails to leave me with a sense of wonder and awe and delight.

• The Womb and the Word: A lovely essay on good ole Mama, and an overview of how Marian poetry helped the writer understand Mary’s role in the church. If you still need a 2023 New Year’s resolution, I highly recommend making it read more poetry.

• Priest for Life?: A really, really helpful breakdown on Frank Pavone’s dismissal from the clerical state. It answers great questions like why this happened, why there’s a lack of response from the church when asked about dismissing sexual abusers, and if Mr. Pavone can appeal. In all transparency, I am not a fan of Mr. Pavone, even if I’m 110% pro life, which I am. This article is a great response to anyone accusing the Vatican of being an “agent for abortion” or “cancelling priests they disagree with” (pardon my eyeroll).

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