Oh What A Year!

Oh what a year! Thinking about highlights of the year that fit this "title" is often how I start my first crack at creating our family holiday card. 2020 surely gives this phrase a whole new meaning! Lists of ways we experienced 2020 like “hand sanitizer, masks, work from home, toilet paper shortage and binge watching” are showing up on 2020 Christmas ornaments seen for sale. Some take a much more harsh view: “We survived our first pandemic”, The Grinch with 2020 above his head saying “stink, stank, stunk” or even “2020 was a $h#tshow”.

I am not arguing the validity of these, by any means. This year has been hard. Devastating unemployment, loss of life loss of life and illness, personal sacrifices and division among citizens about how to tackle the problems we face. Social media has become a community where trolls and hate speech have brought about the new “pause” feature to allow you to take a breather from people you’ve considered friends whose posts bring too much anxiety. We’ve looked more to self and less to the greater good. We’ve cordoned ourselves off to our groups that only agree with us and refuse to look with compromising eyes at other information.

Oh what a year, it is true. Sadly, this has been simmering for awhile. Now we are at full boil with the 2020 pandemic added into the mix.

We always give our sons an ornament each Christmas Eve. While they normally don’t focus on something other than Christmas, I thought a 2020 one would be appropriate this time. An ornament to spark conversations and remembrances with their own children in years to come. My search for the perfect ornament has not been easy and it got me thinking.

What perception of 2020 do I want to hang on a Christmas tree that is in celebration of Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward All? Do I really want an orb of negativity or toilet paper image with the word $h#*show as part of the memories I pull from the ornament box each year?

What conversations do I want to start with this gift especially as future generations unpack the ornaments and wonder what it means? While talking about the realities and emotions of the year are important and even essential to share, I want to make sure that we come around to something more, not just a list of what we've endured.

From a wide lens view, I see 2020 filled with so many hardships, some with Covid-19 as the catalyst and some the election. As we start to zoom in, I see lots of problems – unemployment, health concerns, death, health care inequities, food and housing insecurity, racial inequity and more – without much compromise or leanings toward solutions. From my closest view, I see miracles in science in unmatched speed.

I see changes in the ways we are living. More time with family, creative ways to connect with family with whom you cannot be near, working from home, new innovations that come with technology and ways to connect, people reaching out to others, creating new traditions and ways of celebrating, more convenience in shopping with pick up and delivery and acts of kindness with neighbors and friends.

Within the challenges of this year like no other, I know something bigger is working. I believe what appear to be disappointments are the seeds of hope and growth. I see opportunities. I see a chance to take the $h#tshow and flush it. It will take focus. Focus on the One who is waiting for us to reset and put Him in charge. To not twist His Word to meet our desires. To lead by example. To move beyond the list of things we have endured and focus on the lessons we have learned and those lessons still on the syllabus of life in 2020 and into 2021. To be able to say “Oh What A Year” with the gifts of strength and power we each have received if we dare to unwrap them and take them with us confidently into 2021.