The End of 2020

There’s been this feeling in the air recently – 2020 is almost over. The sun has not yet come up over the horizon, but the morning is here. We can see everything a little more clearly. We are waiting anxiously with baited breath. And despite the inevitable challenges that will come in 2021, it seems that we all feel a little bit of relief to see the end of this year that held so much difficulty in it. 

But even as I want to rush ahead to the beginning of something new, to a year with a different number, the Lord has been reminding me of all the good He is doing here, now, today.

Don’t get me wrong. The pandemic caused an international move for me. Multiple quarantines. Multiple moves and rearranged plans. The disappointment of unfulfilled hopes and dreams. Trying to navigate boundaries around travel and social distancing and exposure in two houses of multiple roommates. A couple weeks ago, I got an email about a canceled retreat I had planned to attend. More disappointment. And that one awkward moment where my roommate drove us to a clinic to get a Covid test the day before Thanksgiving. We arrived two minutes before the clinic closed. My eyes watered as the nurse stuck a long q-tip up my nose. Test negative, but quarantine still for fourteen days from exposure, she said.

And let’s be honest, it’s just real hard to focus on a mass being streamed over the internet. It’s just hard, y’all.

Still, in the midst of all the chaos, I have to believe that God is doing something here. I can’t say I know exactly what it is (that would be nice), but I believe and have hope, that He is moving.

I have learned and re-learned so much in this year.

Slow down.
His plans are better than mine.
Let good things grow in the soil of all the mess that has happened in this time.
He has His purposes that I don’t know.

This year has been a year for me of french press coffee and long walks. Podcasts. Outdoor meetings (let’s forget about the one that ended with my ankles speckled in fresh mosquito bites). Masks in the chapel or at Church. Quarantines. Long distance friendships. Video calls. Group video calls. And the rocking chair I found that one time in a trash pile on a random street, after a day in which my plans for the year revealed a definite shift. Was that your message to me, Lord? To sit and be with You?

For me, as I slow down enough to hear the Lord speaking, I hear Him speaking over me some older messages that I’ve needed to come back to.

You are My beloved daughter.
Your sin is not too great for My mercy.
I never asked you to work for Me.
You can’t earn My love. There isn’t a need to. My love is freely given, abundantly poured out.
My love has been strong and passionate and burning for you since the beginning of time.
You are not primarily a missionary. 
Primarily, you belong to Me.
You are Mine.
Just come and be with Me for a little while.
I want to know your heart.
Let Me love you.

In a year when my plans have been changed, uprooted, and stalled, I know that I must trust in the Father who knew all of this anyway, who had a plan for all of this anyway. He wasn’t blindsided by a pandemic. He wasn’t unprepared, even though I was unprepared. He is still moving. He is using all things for His glory, like it says in Romans 8:28.

So I want to end this year, as crazy as it sounds, being grateful for all the things that 2020 has brought with it. I want to celebrate and thank the Lord for never leaving me, abandoning me, or forsaking me. And even though there is a part of me that wants to groan, sigh and wish the end of this year away, I also want to see the gifts that God has been pouring out. Give me the eyes to see, Jesus. Because my God is a good Father. He is better, and kinder, and more loving than I can comprehend. I don’t want to miss what He is doing here.

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