Month: December 2020

I sit here writing this on the second-to-last day of 2020 in a small cabin in the woods of Mendecino, and although it has been a terrible and crazy year, I also feel incredibly blessed.

This year has blessed me enormously. In the midst of tragedy and chaos, I have married the love of my life and now found out that we are expecting our first child.

While the virus continues to rage on, the vaccines are starting to be doled out and I feel an immense sense of hope rising for the coming year. God’s timing is so odd, and yet always so perfect.

This year was the most difficult and also most beautiful year of my life; how the two can coexist is beyond me, but I’ve learned (as I’ve written in previous posts) to take both the good and the bad, because they are both used for His glory and my benefit.

This year:

I worked at a coffee shop.

A pandemic started.

I lost my job at the coffee shop.

I planned, and re-planned, and re-planned my wedding.

I drove two hours to see my fiancé every day.

We got an apartment.

I got a new job.

I married my best friend.

I became depressed.

My health worsened.

I became pregnant.

And so much more… perhaps the most excruciating and wonderful experiences of my life have all occurred this year, and when I look back I see nothing but God’s faithfulness. God’s faithfulness in my pain and my joy. His promises fulfilled in my life and His unexpected blessings. While I have certainly not always been faithful to Him through everything this year, He has been faithful to me, and this I have to remember when the next curveball comes, and the next…

In Lysa Terkeurst’s It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way, she talks about how God does give us more than we can handle, because we are not supposed to handle it alone. This resonates with me. I have felt in over my head a few too many times this year, and every month it seems as though something new is ready to consume me in my already overwhelmed state. And yet, I have survived. But not on my own. I look back at the events of this year and marvel at how I’ve come through all of them in one piece. The only answer is that He has been with me and helped me the whole time.

Sometimes it takes looking back to understand what God is doing. Looking at the present and the future can be confusing and overwhelming, but when we look back at what has happened in our lives, it’s so much easier to understand the bigger picture. It gives us faith to persevere through the trials of now.

I know God will take care of me, because He has taken care of me. I know my worry for the future is pointless, because He has always made circumstances work out. I can walk with trust and confidence into the future, even though it is so uncertain, because I know that no matter what happens I will be okay if I stick with Him. That’s what this year has taught me.

We hate suffering and pain, but they are truly the only way to strengthen our faiths. And I pray that this year has not only strengthened my faith, but every believer who has walked through even worse fires than I have. God is preparing our hearts for what is to come, and though the pandemic may be winding down, there will certainly be more crazy years ahead. But we need not fear anymore. He goes before us and walks with us.

As 2020 finally winds down to a close, yet another surprise has taken me off guard and shaken up my plans, carrying on the theme of the year: embracing the unexpected.

Could there be a more wild year than this?

In the middle of a pandemic, I have moved to a new city, started a new job, gotten married, and now this. And I wonder if God doesn’t have an enormous sense of humor (it’s better than thinking him indelibly cruel). I wonder if He’s building my faith in bigger ways than He has in the past because He knows I’m ready (or rather He will make me ready). I don’t feel ready. I miss the comforts of 2019 when the world was normal and my biggest struggle quite frankly was boredom.

My life does not feel boring anymore.

When God moves, life is not boring. 2020 has not been boring. But it has been an opportunity for great faith. Every day something new seems to threaten our existence and way of life, and every day we get to surrender our fear and uncertainty to the Lord, because we have to. If we don’t, it will absolutely consume us. 2020 will swallow us whole unless we cling to Him with everything we have.

And so, when He throws yet another curveball my way in the midst of the chaos of 2020, I can almost laugh, because I know I’ll get through it. He has brought me through so much already this year (and in my life!) that there’s no excuse for being fearful anymore. There’s no excuse for me to doubt His goodness or question His plans for me. I can simply relax, trust, and enjoy the adventure.