Happy New Year from me to you! It’s early in the morning as I write this and I’m sitting next to our droopy and dry Christmas tree. My husband and I have been negotiating on when is the appropriate time to take it down. I am someone who likes to look forward and move. I am a big believer in taking it down the day after Christmas. He is a sweet sentimental man who wants to milk it for all its worth. So here it is, the first of January and we’ve still got a Christmas tree in here!
It makes me think though…
Just as this old dried out tree has been carried over from last year, what other relics of 2020 are wanting to be be acknowledged still. No doubt the year was…interesting. We’re not totally out of the woods yet in terms of Covid, but there was more to the year than that. In our personal lives there were many changes too. My husband started a new job and made huge strides in his career development. I become licensed and started my own business. We got tickets to SDCC!…Then it got cancelled. My Aunt died. I gained in closeness to a group of friends that I’ve come to see as invaluable. We also diminished in closeness to some friends that we thought were invaluable, but perhaps we were wrong. Many things can happen in a year, and it highlights a principle that change is constant.
What 2020 did to us and for us…
Twenty-twenty also showed us that we are capable of withstanding and persevering so much! Even as I think about the sad things from this year – no SDCC, no travel, losing friends – I’m encouraged that we will move on from that. The collective world has withstood an event so insane that as survivors I hope you feel the capabilities that have been hard won this year. As such, you’ve been tested in the sorrows, the disappointments, fear, conflict, anxieties and grief of 2020 and have survived. Let that be an encouragement for what you may face in the future.
Our tomorrows will have more opportunities and more hope – for travel, comic conventions, and friends out there that we haven’t even met yet that could be lifelong at that. Our tomorrows will also have more pain. Even as a write this I got sad family news that we weren’t expecting. We don’t get to choose how our years will go. But, be kind to yourselves and others. Have faith that you can withstand, and hold on to one another.
I encourage you to reflect on your year, acknowledge the good, and the hard. Thank it all. Be encouraged by what that’s made you into today and hope for tomorrow.
