2020: The Year of Resilience
It’s easy to buy into the rhetoric that 2020 has been a dumpster fire. Truthfully, that’s not far from true in so many cases. I have an increasing list of people who have passed from this dreadful virus and pray often for their families. And the virus seems to be the most easily explained part of the fire. Racial injustice that finally reached a tipping point. A highly contested election. Conspiracy theories that sound just crazy enough to be real this year.
But that’s not all 2020 has to offer. The flickering light of this dumpster fire consumed some of the trash of our lives. And it illuminated a tight circle around what’s most important.
What if, in 2020, we learned to do hard things? What if we figured out how resilient we really are? What if we learned that we can survive difficulty and arrive on the other side? What if we learned we don’t have to go into the grocery store, but we can pick up our groceries from the parking lot and save ourselves a whole lotta time and hassle and money?
We have to remember the hard things. A true version of history isn’t cleaned up so we only remember the good. I won’t soon forget standing in my parents’ driveway in mid-March fighting back tears. I feared when I pulled away from their house I might not ever see them alive again. At the time the virus was an invisible force. Anyone could have it. Fear billowed over the world like a great black cloud of smoke.
But we don’t have to focus solely on the difficult parts. When our kids and grandkids ask us about this year, what if we intersperse the hard parts with positive outcomes?
A few of those good things I hope to remember:
Our family worked to intentionally get to know our new neighbors, and we made some great new friends.
My husband and I worked from home together.
The kids and I learned our new neighborhood by riding our bikes almost every day for months.
We added a new puppy to our family.
We vacationed with extended family more.
Our extended family was intentional about getting together every few months which required taking additional precautions.
We learned the sheer joy of ordering pizza delivered to our door.
In-person church services filled our hearts with more joy than we could have imagined.
We celebrated in-person school.
We had a lot of family movie nights. We might not go back to the theater.
We checked in on our friends more often.
We asked ourselves if there was a better or different way to do things we’d been doing the same way for years.
I completed my fifth book.
My son improved his trumpet skills.
My daughter finished the Harry Potter series.
My husband revamped three closets.
What are the parts of 2020 you want to remember?
