It’s almost over. It’s almost over.
But I’m too realistic (pessimistic) to believe midnight on January 1 will change much of anything.
This year. This year has been full of things that, on their own, would have been difficult. Together? One after another after another after another?
I’m tired. No, I’m exhausted. I was tired before. A full-time student with a part time job and another quarter time job plus the constant feeling of dread after each failed attempt at a social interaction made me tired.
A full-time student with a part time job plus the constant feeling of the world ending plus utter and complete heartbreak plus isolation plus academic failure plus constantly seeing sin in my life made me exhausted.
I’ve gotten out of bed every day. I’ve showered and dressed and when it reopened, I went to my favorite coffee shop and read my Bible. I went to work. I listened to online lectures, attempted assignments in which I had no clue what was happening. I pushed and pushed and pushed and cleaned and cleaned some more and wore my mask and washed my hands and got out of bed and showered and dressed and cut down on my coffee because I forgot graduate school costs money and moving out costs money and what in the name of all that is useful and logical am I doing with my life?
Well, at the very least?
I’m doing it.
I’m doing my life. I’m rolling with the punches and trying to be adaptable and learning compassion and trust and kindness and getting up only to fall down again, victim of my own sharp comment or thought. I’m a slow learner. I know that much.
At the very least, I haven’t given up. God helped me through the beginning days of the pandemic that were so overwhelming I found myself crying at the dinner table, crying in a corner of my room, trying to remember how to get air into my body and then let it out… Those early days were terrifying. But, as you’ve read before, God. God was there in those early days and then in these middle days where I am constantly fighting the urge to break every piece of dishware in the house (not nice, 1/10 do not recommend) because the tension is just too much, God is there to remind me that it is not too much for Him. It needs to be too much for me so that I can start learning to give it to Him and live in the peace and security of who He is. I’ll admit it, I’m horrible at that.
But God is still always there, with me and every other believer on the face of this earth. He has not left us during this pandemic. He’s encouraged us and corrected us and taught us. He’s held us in our isolation, pushed us out of our comfort zones, and protected us forever from the actual worst thing that could happen.
*insert deep breath here*
So, what are some good things that happened in 2020? How about I list twenty, just for kicks. Twenty things, some small and some big, most really relegated just to my sphere of knowledge and experience. But twenty things God has done this year.
1. My brother is dating a wonderful, motivated, hard-working, sweet girl.
2. I probably won’t lose my scholarship.
3. We got to see the Loghrys twice in six weeks.
4. Our grandparents are going out walking every day, like, OUTSIDE. They’re taking drives. They’re making it work.
5. My elderly Sunday School ladies all figured out or were taught how to use Zoom pretty quickly into the pandemic and have still been meeting and studying and praying together even if they aren’t able to meet in person.
6. I wrote a letter to an international honors society and got something changed for another group of people.
7. God pulled off a VBS drama that was in peril literally the entire time it was happening.
8. I got some kind encouragement from a previously-thought-to-be-heartless instructor after I turned in a very, very personal writing assignment.
9. I survived Intermediate Spanish I.
10. My sisters have matured and grown into lovely seventeen-year-old girls who care for each other and more importantly, their entire church, untainted by the judgement and harshness I battle.
11. I reconnected with a girl I met early on at church but hadn’t ever built a relationship with.
12. I have the best injury story ever after dislocating my knee and shoulder and fracturing my elbow at a kickboxing class. No, no, I wasn’t sparring I literally lost my balance and just fell over. Fun times, right?
13. I met a new couple at church and they’ve been joining my dad and I for The Mandalorian every Saturday.
14. God helped humble me in my academic pride
15. I got to read some new fiction books this week and devoured them.
16. God is sovereign. God is sovereign. God is sovereign.
17. I now have some great examples for my lived-by belief that God is sovereign, and His definition of “good” isn’t always ours.
18. New Christmas music from some of my favorite artists has been the perfect accompaniment to the lovely fall weather and colors as I drive to work each day.
19. After spending the summer looking for a new church, I returned to BCLR and felt very touched to have several people tell me how happy and even relieved they were I was back.
20. Absolutely nothing that has or will happen this year has done anything to change God’s plan, power, or providence.
And one more, looking forward to the new year:
21. Absolutely nothing that has or will happen has changed the fact that God is perfectly good. Nothing’s changed the fact that He loves us. Nothing’s changed the fact that our High Priest feels for us. Nothing’s changed that God loves me. Nothing has, nothing can, and nothing will.
Absolutely nothing.
Take a moment and read these verses from Romans 8. Really, really read them. Read them aloud, read them slowly. Meditate on them. And remember absolutely nothing.
Romans 8:18-39
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Sarah Standard Version 