Lessons Learned from 2020

 

Last New Year season I wrote a brief post about ways I grew as a person in 2019. It is one of my favorite blog posts, so go check it out by clicking here. 2019 was a hard year for me. I spent hours wallowing in shame and fear. I followed familiar habits in toxic circles. Habits like overthinking, negative self-talk, procrastination, and people pleasing held me back from enjoying the freedoms that I took for granted before the Covid-19 pandemic. 

It's funny to remember how many people claimed 2020 as their year. But I'm going to risk sounding crazy and claim that 2020 was my year. I don't say this to be insensitive. I have heard enough stories of personal loss and pain to believe that even if there was no pandemic, 2020 would have been devastating for many individuals. I am not belittling that pain in any way. 

I have seen my own challenges this year. I watched my boyfriend ship out to boot camp. I watched the world shut down for two weeks . . . that turned into months. I watched my health fail. I received my diagnosis. I moved across the country during the pandemic. While in Oregon, we experienced the loss of beloved ranch horses. Now, as the year comes to a close, I find myself quarantined in my home with Covid-19 over Christmas. 

2020 was a year of waiting, a year of grief. It was also a year full of joy. 

Waiting

I'm not the most patient person - ask anyone who knows me. This is compounded by a society that tells us our worth is equal to how busy we are. Everything is go go go. Stay busy, stay efficient, get ish done. Then we found ourselves waiting. Waiting in quarantine. Waiting for "normal". Waiting for a vaccine. Waiting to see our loved ones again. This isn't unique to 2020. Most of life is made up of waiting. There is always another goal, another prize. If I don't find joy in the waiting I will waste my life away. If I can't be content now, without "normal" I will never be content. I was never content with "normal" anyway. 

Grief

I've spent hours crying this year. Probably not any more than any other year, but for more memorable reasons. Literal tears aside, 2020 was full of loss. I grieved the loss of my health, my plans. In May I found myself confronted with an immense grief that wasn't mine as I wrestled with issues of social injustice that I had never fully considered. I grieved the deaths of horses I loved at Crystal Peaks. All around the world, students have lost their sports, their plays, their graduations. Most of all, many people have lost their loved ones. Some to Covid-19, some to other diseases but the pandemic affected precious last moments with their loved ones. 

Joy

Joy is the product of 2020. Joy is what you have left when you are brave enough to sit nonjudgmentally with your waiting and with your grief. In 2019, I was not sitting with my discomfort. I was running away from it at break-neck speeds. When I looked my loss in the face, when I made peace with waiting, there was joy. 

Joy doesn't come from  my circumstances. It comes from my mind, the choices I make about my thoughts, words, and actions. Nothing can give me joy or take away my joy unless I allow it. I can allow it because I know I cannot control my circumstances. Looking back on this year, I can truly say "If the Lord wills, I will live, and do this or that" (James 4:15). Things happened this year completely beyond my control. Terrible things happened that I couldn't stop. Wonderful things happened that I never could have achieved. I am walking into 2021 with a song of joy, because I know God can be trusted. 

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
And I wait for His word.
My soul waits in hope for the Lord
More than the watchmen for the morning;
Yes, more than the watchmen for the morning.

Psalm 130:5-6