Hindsight is 20/20

If there is one thing that the year 2020 has taught me, it is this: to stop and be still. To appreciate all the little things I used to take for granted. To look up when the entire world is in a state of uncertainty and wondering what will happen next. And it has reminded me how to stand on solid ground when everything else has been shaken. Yes, this year has been a year for the books, but perhaps it’s not a chapter we want to completely dismiss just yet.

I think about the things that have changed since March; about what we lost and what we gave up. Who would have ever imagined that we wouldn’t be allowed to gather for in-person church services? Who could have dreamed that travel would temporarily cease to exist? Or that jobs would be lost and that people would be separated from being able to see loved ones. Who could have foreseen the loneliness, the isolation, and the anxiety that would sweep over us as we waited to see what would happen next? And who could have known that the turn of a decade laced with the promise of vision and anticipation would instead leave us stumbling and stuck?

No, this year certainly did not turn out the way it was supposed to. 

Or at least, not the way we thought it was supposed to.

When I consider all the things we walked through this year, I can’t help but also think about what was on the other side of those things. Because in this year of hardships and changes and things being like we’ve never known before, there was also an indescribable beauty. I would never wish the loss of life or jobs or the number of other things the pandemic brought, but could it be that in all that we faced, there was still also something good to be found in this year?

It was in the middle of this mess that my relationship with the Lord went even deeper. It was when I couldn’t be around friends and loved ones that I learned how much they meant to me. And it was when things were taken away, that I was reminded to be grateful for having them in the first place. This year has taught me to look for beauty in the ashes, to TRULY appreciate all things, and to remember the truth of that song we used to sing in Sunday School that said, “God’s got the whole world in His hands.”

Maybe this year wasn’t the best of times and maybe it would have been better to skip it altogether, but I can’t help but think there’s something we were supposed to learn through all of this. I recently heard John Maxwell share this story and I can’t think of a better lens through which to consider the past nine months. He called it “A Babe in Bethlehem” and it goes a little something like this: 

“A century ago men were following, with bated breath, the march of Napoleon, and waiting with feverish impatience for the latest news of the wars. And all the while, in their own homes, babies were being born. But who could think about babies? Everybody was thinking about battles. . . .In one year, midway between Trafalgar and Waterloo there stole into the world a host of heroes! In 1809 Gladstone was born at Liverpool; Alfred Tennyson was born at the Somersby Rectory and Oliver Wendell Holmes in Massachusetts. And on that same day, Abraham Lincoln drew his first breath at Old Kentucky. Music was enriched by the advent of Frederic Chopin at Warsaw, and of Felix Mendelssohn at Hamburg, but nobody thought of babies. Everybody was thinking of battles. Yet. . . which of the battles of 1809 mattered more than the babies of 1809?” (F. W. Boreham, Mountains in the Mist: Some Australian Reveries [1919], 166-67, 170)

I imagine that a lot like us, the people of 1809 could only see the challenges. Their focus was on the war, the loss, and the devastation. I’m sure they must have wondered when it would be over and eagerly hoped that 1810 would usher in a different set of circumstances. But meanwhile, in that same year that seemed so useless and unnecessary, world changers were taking their first breaths. Babies that would go on to change history and influence those around them were being born at what seemed to be just the wrong time. Except it was really “just the right time” because God was at work even in what seemed like a year that was filled with nothing good.

As we focus on the most important baby’s birth this December and what that meant for humanity, may we also think about the new thing He wants to do within each of us. COVID-19 came into our world this year, but something else was born too. Amidst all the things we lost and had to give up, I believe we also received room for something new to come about. I believe there is an idea, a hope, a dream, or a revelation that came to life inside each of us during 2020. And that we will see the fruit of things planted this year in the years to come. After all, a seed first grows in the darkness before it bursts forth and produces a crop. 

So keep going, friends. This year may have been difficult and unusual, but there was beauty in those ashes and there were moments worth celebrating. I’m ready to see what a new year will bring, but let’s not forget to reflect on what this past year brought us through. Let’s not forget to look for the good. Or despise meager beginnings. And let’s not forget that God is always at work. After all, hindsight is always 20/20. Merry Christmas!

-Only Hope

                                 Here's to some of the good that came from 2020!

To bestow on them a crown of beauty

    instead of ashes,

the oil of joy

    instead of mourning,

and a garment of praise

    instead of a spirit of despair.

They will be called oaks of righteousness,

    a planting of the Lord

    for the display of His splendor.

                                                                            -Isaiah 61:3