Should We Just Forget 2020?

It’s not been a good year. We started to realize this last March. By April, I was reading articles and memes about turning the calendar back to 2019. As we moved into the fall, those articles and memes morphed into jumping forward to 2021. We pretend that the pandemic, political divide, quarantines, race issues, job losses, anger, shutdowns, and hatred, are the fault of a calendar year. So logically, let’s blame it all on 2020. And now that Christmas is over, let’s just get to the New Year and put this year behind us.

I’m not denying that this year was tough. I’m a pastor. I’ve given my life to ministry. Ministry is about people: connecting, serving, gathering, leading, loving, correcting, teaching. It’s hard to do that and social distance. So this has been the hardest year of my ministry, and I’ve been doing this for 35 years. 

But difficult times are good and necessary. We’ve learned a lot this year. Some of us have learned how good we actually have it (most people in history would still trade places with us). We’ve learned how fragile health can be and how vulnerable we all are (I’ve wondered what this would have been like, had COVID truly been deadly, on a scale closer to pandemics in history). We’ve learned how badly, even the most introverted among us, need face-to-face relationships and physical gatherings with others. We’ve learned how quickly our financial condition can collapse. 

This is not a time to “just get it over with.” This is a time to remember and learn, taking those memories and lessons with us into 2021 and the years beyond. Because if we allow the lessons of this year to shape our attitudes, values, and plans in years to come, some of us will look back at this year the way the “Greatest Generation” revered the “Great Depression”; a time that shaped them into the victors and builders that they became. And I remember my grandparents speaking with fondness of the poverty they fought their way through during those years. If we keep 2020 with us in our memories and lessons learned, we can view this year the same way.

So in these closing days of this year, do some things to properly bring the year to a close. Get the pictures out. Write down what happened and when, both nationally and in your own life and family. Reminisce. Talk through the pain, emotions, and blessings. Then, write down the lessons you've learned this year, and how those lessons will change you. 

2020 surprised us, but it didn’t surprise God. He knew some things were coming that he allowed. And he orchestrated some of those things. Whether he caused them, or allowed them.