Summing Up 2020

A recent social media post seems to somehow sum it all up - a thirteen-year-old observing that this year has felt like a decade's worth of events rolled into one and, if I'm honest, I have to agree. On so many occasions this year, when we thought it couldn't get any worse, it did, and we were left wondering where God was in all this.  

We began this year with talk of 20/20 vision and the symbol of perfection only to find out that the year held anything but perfection, and the uncertain, the upended, the im-perfect became the norm. Within weeks of beginning this cycle round the sun, we found ourselves questioning everything and feeling as though life as we'd known it had suddenly spun out of control. All the things we never dreamt could happen did...and "that's so 2020" became a sort of joke between us all. Memes filled our social media pages as we all sought to somehow laugh our way out of this nightmare of a year we found ourselves in. But the truth was, the memes were actually accurate most of the time. This was no laughing matter. Faith, livelihood, freedom, health, and so much more were really and truly on the line. 

Houses burned and fires raged and people protested and tempers soared and we all watched in horror as friend turned against friend and a virus flipped our sense of normalcy on its head and loved ones died and spirits sank and despair set in. 

2020 brought everything we didn't want or ask for. It certainly didn't live up to the expectations we all had at the beginning nor the promise of perfection we all had hoped for. 

Wars can rage and passions rise and what you build can come down in an instant and all you're really assured of short of eternity is a messy, crazy, broken world that can tear your heart right in two.

But isn't this also the way of God: reminding us all that we cannot find perfection this side of Heaven and that the only perfect we have is Himself? 

This year feels long. It's as though the months have marched forward but I feel as though I left a piece of myself back in about February prior to it all going wrong. It's as if I'm trying to pick up where I left off and now find myself at the end of another year, trying to make sense of it all. Perhaps you feel the same way. 

Who knew so much could happen in so short a time and what we know is all we know is that we don't know and He knows and we can still believe. 

At the start of the year, all I wanted was to heal. To begin to feel again. To not be caught in a seemingly endless sea of grief. But I never would've imagined that the way to that healing lay in further suffering. That the world would literally have to go on pause and my schedule would have to be emptied and my hands taken off the stirring wheel of my life in order to find what I was so desperately hoping for. It took an unexpected diagnosis of Complex Post Traumatic Stress to get me to go on a sort of personal re-set, to learn about mental wellness, to hit the mountainous slopes in search of perspective above my problems, and to watch as my circle of relationships reordered itself yet again in order for me to start dreaming again. To start feeling alive. 

And maybe this is how it works for all people in all places: healing comes in the way you least expect it to. Sometimes you have to undergo further pain before you can start to get well and all the things you'd most like to avoid in your life are actually the very things that lead to your greatest growth, your biggest blessings. 

And perhaps God knew that we couldn't heal our souls, couldn't mend our country unless we became sick, unless we were forced to stop, unless we had all sense of control removed from us and were only left with the things that truly matter. 

I know we've all wished 2020 would hasten its exit, and I get it that we're probably over-expectant for the next year to roll with more certainty, more health, more normalcy than we've had. But I also wish for us to never lose what we gained in this season. I've read the texts, heard the voices all say that they're somehow better, wiser, fuller, richer in these days... even as businesses struggle and money runs tight and we all do our best to try to hold it all together. Amid all this breaking there is an underlying mending going on, so softly and subtly that it's almost imperceptible. But it's there because He's there, and all this will soon be proven to work for our good. 

As we've navigated these tenuous months and all they've brought with them, we've found ourselves still held, still loved, still graciously blessed. And that, friends, is how you re-frame even your worst seasons: you look back and you make yourself count the ways He has bestowed. Even as it's all felt so difficult, it's also still be wonderfully good because we've had Him and we've had each other. And we've felt our burdens borne and our sorrows carried and our hearts cheered in the darkest of days because the truth always stands: He is always good, and we are always loved. 

And so we bid adieu to the year that was... and we turn our faces to the one that will be. And, whatever it holds for us, we can count on a singular constant - that He will never not be Himself for us in whatever we face and that love will always find a way to us. Grace will meet us where we are, full of every abundance. And thus we cling to the surest of truths as we continue on, hopeful for what is to come and thankful for what has been. 

Yes, even all of this.