As I look forward to this new year, I’m reminded how “unprecedented” 2020 was. 2020 brought me a lot of change, but honestly, the last few years have been full of change so 2020 didn’t rock my world like it did so many others.
I launched a book and a daughter, started a new job and career and did a few home projects. The greatest highlight was my granddaughter being born. Working from home for me is a dream. It’s how I spent half of 2019, so I was used to it. I didn’t like the uncertainty of what was happening next. But honestly, isn’t that life?
Just when you think you have it all figured out, you get sent a curve ball. So as we settled into the routine of not knowing what to expect, I’d venture to guess we all learned a few things or were reminded of things we had already learned.
I wonder, if you were to look back over the hurdles of 2020 you might see how you were able to jump them because of previous training. The hard things in life don’t come with manuals, but the do have some foreshadowing that we didn’t realized until now.
As I began to pray for a new word for the year like I’ve done for many years now, just like last year nothing came. Until late in December. It’s a word I’ve heard before, as recently as 2018.
“Behold, I’m doing a new thing.”
New, is that the word for 2021? Yes and no. The Lord breathed on this verse for me and instead of me noticing new this year, 2021, I notice “I’m doing.” God’s doing a new thing. Isn’t He always doing a new thing?
The challenge for me and for you if you’d like to join me is to notice Him and the things He is doing. We can narrow all that He does down to love. He loves us.
As I reflect back on the year of uncertainty, masks, and hand sanitizer, I’m left repeating a mantra the Lord gave me years ago.
This I know…there is a God and He loves me.
On Christmas Eve, when it was just Jesus and me I cried as I put together a puzzle. I didn’t try to pull myself up or negate my feelings. I cried. I poured out my heart to the Lord. And He met me, in my kitchen, over a puzzle of Paris with a gentle whisper to my soul, “What do you know?”
I wiped away the tears and declared, “This I know…there is a God and He loves me.”
On New Year’s Eve, I sat with a different puzzle, this time in my living room again, talking to the Lord about what the year was like and wondering what the next would hold. This time no tears or sadness, but rather a sweet contentment that it was just the two of us.
Scrolling through Instagram, I read a post from Christine Caine about Passion 2021. Placing the computer on the corner of the card table, I typed in Passion2021.com. My heart was blessed with singing worship songs to the Lord and short messages. It reminded me of my childhood church and our New Year’s Eve services in the prayer chapel and of the Urbana conferences I attended. At Urbana, we took communion right at midnight.
Earlier in the day, I told a coworker I was planning on taking communion at midnight. As the clock approached 10 pm my time and 12 am East Coast Time, Lou Giglio took to the stage. He encouraged the listeners to gather the elements for communion. My heart rejoiced. I grabbed the elements, knelt next to a chair, and took communion with thousands of others across the country and maybe even the world. A touch of Heaven to start of 2021.
Each day since I’m looking for the ways God’s love is showing up in my life. From a phone call full of healing to singing my favorite hymn, Be Thou My Vision on the church service I watched Sunday morning, God is knocking my socks off with His love.
