the counting of 2020
I started counting down last week, marking the days that would make up the ending of 2020.
I counted to thirty-eight.
I wondered, could I name and count thirty-eight things that happened in 2020 that I could muster genuine thanks. I had read One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp years ago and I found that when I purposefully moved in radical thanks, it transformed how I absorbed the hard days, the good days, and all the waves of gritty real life in between.
I sort of chuckled at the irony of it all. Placing pen to paper, I wouldn’t be able to undo the hardships that this year has brought to so many. But, I couldn’t ignore a year that brought me a space to grieve chronic illness and to learn to breathe again. I also couldn’t forget that as I fell progressively gaunt, a pandemic raged like fire across the world. As I grieved an uncooperative body, I had never thanked God for a climate that said grieving could be welcomed. That is where I started.
My pen started to fill the lines of the journal; my initial skepticism also moved. Despite the polarization we witnessed this year, I could still see the beauty that had consistently fought to emerge.
The greatest thing I saw this year were people.
The greatest thing I saw this year were people. People that checked on their neighbors, dropping off groceries when needed. People that transformed isolated birthdays into parades of celebration. Essential workers that fought and navigated wars most of us will never see. Online classes with teachers who lived their life calling despite ever-zooming obstacles. Mail delivery workers who remained faithful through wind, rain, hurricanes, elections, and perplexing toilet tissue shortages-they waved through windows with oversized boxes and smiling eyes above masks.
My hands continued to write fast, documenting every moment I could remember, every seemingly small nook and cranny of 2020 that truthfully had meant so much.
It didn’t take long to find thirty-eight things that 2020 had utilized to teach me.
2020 reminded me the peace found in prayer walking, the joys of seeing neighbors walking their dogs or waving over a fence.
2020 reminded me than informal family game nights and home cooked meals go a long way in forging deep bonds with the people you live with.
2020 brought read alouds alive as mancub4 lived his best Green Ember life in our backyard.
2020 was walking the garden and listening for the bees’ buzz, watching our old dog roll with delight in freshly trimmed grass.
2020 allowed our bodies to rest so our souls could wake up.
It was the year we will never forget early morning downtown walks and a squirrel family that moved into our attic. It was a year that taught us new meaning to 20/20 vision-we could see things much clearer now that we had stopped chasing the winds and decided instead to plant strong roots that could bear the branches that were growing.
There are now thirty-four days left to a year that will have undoubtedly earned its own chapter in our history chronicles. What wonderful ways can you see 2020 came to you?
Gracious Lord, with thirty-four days of spinning earth left to this year, let us offer grace the way You show us grace. Open our eyes that we may see our neighbors and husbands and children and even the stranger on the corner the way that You would want us to see them. May we see that this world still has value as do those that walk upon it. May we never take for granted the blessings, seen and unseen, felt and lived all around us. Lord, when we emerge into 2021, let us not forget all of the lessons, love, and life we lived in 2020.
Amen and amen.
