What Locusts are Teaching Me About the Last 10 Years

I am really fortunate to be surrounded by a great tribe of people in my life.
I was recently on the phone with one of my besties who is a priest. I was sharing with him some surprising jealousy and insecurities that rose up inside of me over the last few weeks.
While I am more self-aware than I used to be, I still struggle sometimes with beating myself up for my big feelings or becoming too self-critical.
The good ol' padre gave me some spiritual homework...because why not?
He asked me to spend some significant time these last weeks of December to reflecting and praying over the last decade I have lived in order to prepare for a new one beginning on January 1, 2020.
We ended the phone call. It was already dark outside.
I turned on the tree lights and lit lots of candles in my living room. The smell was like pine and my apartment had a cozy glow as I settled in my prayer to do some talking and listening with God.
I started to name all the many things that have taken place in my life this last decade: starting and completing my graduate degree, marriage, divorce, annulment, healing and growth, a serious relationship and later breaking up, more healing, more dating part 2, writing, speaking, and growing in my creative dreams and passions.
The last ten years have held a lot for me.

I started thinking about how this decade, in many ways, was filled with a lot of growing, pruning, weeding, plowing, and tending the soil of my life. I remembered certain images God has given me in prayer related to those farming analogies, even though I am the furthest thing from a farmer girl.
So I sat in the silence, remembering and reflecting.
I prayed a bold prayer: Jesus, can this next year of my life and into this next decade, bring about the fruit and harvest of the previous decade? Can all that healing, growth, and transformation come to fruition in these next years? Can this decade be my decade?
I did not hear an audible voice, but it felt so honest and true. And I know God heard my prayer.
As I wiped the tears from eyes, I remembered a specific memory.
It was when I was married and going to a support group for women whose husbands struggled with sexual integrity issues. I was crying to her, wondering if life would always be this way or if it would ever change. She quoted to me a verse of Scripture I had never heard before, Joel 2:25: I will repay you double for what the swarming locust has eaten.
I remembered the verse that night sitting in my living room. I sat with the words and asked Jesus that this next year especially and into my next decade would bring a harvest in my life.
Fast forward to the next day when I was sitting in a Walmart parking lot. I had a list of items to get ready for a day retreat that weekend I was hosting at the parish I work at.
I was finishing a podcast episode of Ruah Storytellers. It was this episode.
Rachel expressed similar longings and desires that I wish for in my own life. Right there in my car, she mentioned that verse in Joel I just recalled the night before.
Cue the waterworks.
I burst into tears and started to sob.
Jesus saw me. He heard that little prayer. It did not necessarily take away the big feelings or change my reality in an instant, but I felt seen and heard by God.
I mopped up my face and thanked Jesus for hearing that little prayer. 
I am believing and holding tight to that promise in Joel 2:25.
God will repay double for all that I endured, healed from, and the many ways I have grown over the last ten years.

I have no idea what 2020 or the next years will hold for me. But I am claiming that Scripture over my life in expectant faith and trust, that this decade will bring about the harvest of those difficult and painful years.

Who knew locusts had so much to me about the last decade of life.


Come Lord Jesus.
I am waiting with openness and expectancy.