Anniversaries are often cause for rejoicing: a 50th wedding anniversary, 40th year at a job, 15 years sober. These anniversaries are great to celebrate.
Some anniversaries are not so easy to handle: death of a loved one, divorce, or other trauma. Of course, those are the anniversaries the enemy also targets to lure us into despair.
Sometimes, when a person is feeling down for no reason, they may look at the calendar and realize, This is the day my mom died 20 years ago. The memory has resurfaced on its own, without their cognitive recognition. The enemy tries to amp it up and bring them to feeling down.
One time I asked my mentor, “What do we do when we realize an anniversary is hitting us in a despairing way?”
She recommended to look at the blessings that preceded that event, or focus on God’s presence in our pain. When the anniversary of my dad’s death got me down, she suggested I focus on the blessings of his life.
Another friend was prompted to realize we should, in general, focus on faith-building anniversaries too. It seems more prevalent that we get caught in cycles of traumatic anniversaries. But if we live focused on faith-building anniversaries, maybe we would be able to navigate the difficult anniversaries with more peace.
Her encouraging suggestion reminded me of a practice I do with my phone calendar. When God shows up in a faith-building moment, I put it in my phone calendar with the current year in parentheses. Then I set that event to repeat every year.
I’ve been recording these God moments for many years, so by now, my phone calendar looks very encouraging indeed. When I click on each day, I see reminders of how God showed up in amazing ways many years ago on that very day. My faith grew when that event first happened, and it grows each time I’m reminded of it.
For me, this is a helpful way to do what both friends suggested and focus on the blessings and faith-building moments with God.
The phone-calendar reminders might work for you, or perhaps you’ll find a different way to remember the faith-building moments. Whichever way you choose, I encourage you to focus on God-moment anniversaries to grow your faith, and focus on blessings when difficult anniversaries come around. God bless you every day.
Here, you can learn more about how and why I record God moments of faith in my phone notes.
Adventures with God 