The Best Year

 

Happy Wednesday! 

"This year is going to be a great year." 

"This year is going to be the best year." 

"I just have such a good feeling about this year, 2020 is going to be really good, I can feel it." 

Those are all things I said in December last year and January of this year. Literally to anyone who would listen I was telling them that 2020 was going to be a great year. A really good year. So many good things are going to happen this year. 2020 was just going to be so amazing. I believed those words down to my bones. There wasn't a hint of hesitation or doubt in me when I said them. I was 110% confident that 2020 was going to be the best year. 

So, you can understand why I laugh and smile at it now. I feel like I personally jinxed 2020 by going around telling everyone how great of a year it was going to be. When this year first started getting crazy though and then crazier and crazier, I was confused. I could still laugh at the irony of how sure I was of this year being the best year... but I was also really confused because I had been so, so sure. It honestly felt like God had planted that in me at the beginning of the year. Like I can't even explain how sure I was of this year being the best year. There was no reason for why I felt that way. No reason for me to know that this year was going to be a good year. It may sound out there, but I honestly felt like it had been a supernatural knowing. God had put such a deep knowing in me that this was going to be a good year no one could have convinced me otherwise in January and February. 

And then... March happened. And the pandemic and the lockdowns happened. A lot of other hard, personal stuff happened this year for me too. I started out this year on such a high for so many different reasons and when it all came crashing down it hurt like nothing else. You can imagine why I was so confused. I was so absolutely 100% this year was going to be a good year and then all of these awful things kept happening. Nothing was going right at all. I mean we were even planning to go to Disney this February! If 2020 had been such a great year I would be giddily awaiting our Disney trip. If 2020 was supposed to be such a great year all the things I had wanted to happen would have happened. But almost zero of those things happened. Everything got cancelled. The world went crazy. It's been one of the hardest years of many of our lives. 

So... why was I so sure it was going to be a good year? That deep knowing in my bones hadn't shaken off when the pandemic hit and the lockdowns happened. Even now I can feel it in my heart that 2020 had been a good year. I told my mom about it way earlier this year. How I think I jinxed 2020 and I thought it was funny, but I was also so sure, like God had made sure I knew that it was going to be a good year at the beginning of the year. I realized that it's a point of view shift. A huge theme this year for me has been to have a Kingdom mindset and Kingdom eyes. To not look at what's going on from my limited point of view, but through the point of view of eternity and the spiritual, through God's eyes. 

I realized that when I look at the world through my own human eyes, all I saw was hurt and ruin and messiness. There was definitely nothing good to happen in 2020 when you look at the year just through your own eyes. But when you take a step back and look at the year through a Kingdom mindset... things start to look a little different. In my own personal life and in the wider world. Honestly, I'm still puzzling out exactly what in the heck happened this year but I am certain that it was all spiritual warfare. Every single bit of what happened this year, the pandemic, the lockdowns, the presidential election, the racial tension and the hate and fear and panic that came from all of those things were all spiritual warfare. I realized that as much as I wish this year hadn't happened the way it did... I'm glad it did happen. This year has been a good year. So many people's eyes have been opened to truths that have been hidden for a long time. Christians have been emboldened and the church has risen up to be the hands and feet of Jesus during this time. Prayer has become central and a daily practice for so many of us that had been letting our prayer life fall to the side. God has moved in such big and amazing ways that can't be ignored by those who see what He's done. 

2020 has been one trial after another and trials can purify and refine us as Christians. God used every single bad thing that has happened this year to refine us and bring us closer to Him. I don't know about you, but a lot of things that I treasured on Earth were stripped away leaving a whole lot of time and empty space for Jesus. I honestly think that this year has moved everyone into something new. Into new seasons, in places - physically, spiritually and/or mentally. 

I know it hasn't been this way for everyone, but for me personally, a lot of blessings came out of this year. Things that I never saw coming, things that God did see coming and had planned and had prepared me for in advance. He led me down a different path and opened my eyes to some things that I was blinded to for a long time. It was a hard and hurtful process, but I am still so thankful for it, for what He has taught me and shown me this year. We ended moving out of the house I've lived in for almost ten years. That was a true blessing that I didn't see coming this year. We had outgrown that house a long time ago, so truly that was all God in giving us a way to move into a house that better fits our family. I became amazing friends with a certain girl from Wisconsin I met by chance last year helping at VBS who has been such a true blessing and I truly believe God put her into my path last year knowing we would need each other this year. I did a hard thing and let go of a church group I had been a part of for a long time, having stayed in it only for comfort and ending up meeting a new writer friend and joining a book club at a new church. I had to let go of so many things and give things that I hadn't realized I had been holding onto to Jesus this year. 

All of it was a hard and difficult process that hurt a lot... but I am thankful for every single moment of this year. The very bad and the very good. Honestly, I can't say that I wish this year was different because if it had been, I wouldn't be who I am today. I wouldn't have grown closer to God in the way I have through this year. 

I know we still have a little ways to go before the new year happens and I know Christmas is right around the corner, but I wanted to take time this December to acknowledge this feeling I had way back last December and in January. Even if no one else reads this post, I've been wanting to write it for months now but knew I wanted to wait till December so I would have a clearer and fuller picture of the year as a whole. 

This post is me acknowledging that 2020 has sucked in a lot of ways. It has been so hard and has hurt so much and brought so much pain and difficulty to not only myself but to so many people all over the world. We have all struggled. But this post is also to acknowledge that my December 2019-January 2020 self's feeling had been right too. This year was a good year. Just not in the way I expected it to be, which is all the better. I would rather God's idea of a good year prevail than my own. He threw me off my own path so many times this year and back onto His path, sometimes without me even wanting Him to or even asking Him to and for that I am thankful. 

I know how easy it is to fall into the habit of feeling our feelings and looking at the world through our own eyes. It’s way harder to consider what goodness has come from this year or in what ways God gave us blessings even if they were hard ones that hurt but were absolutely necessary. But I think it’s important, this year especially, that we take the hard path after Christmas and before the New Year and reflect on the goodness this year has brought to our lives, whether it be getting a new house or learning a hard lesson or being knocked of your own path and back onto God’s path. 

My list of things that made 2020 the best year:

God pointed me back in the right direction, made me realize that I needed some space. 

We were blessed with a new house!

He led us to a new church and to new friends 

We went to my favorite hotel twice (both times were wonderful) 

I published 2 books and 2 novellas this year

God made me face a lot of hard truths. About my plans and expectations for the year and my life and what needed to actually happen. He refined me so much this year and is still refining me. 

I was supposed to do an author thing at our local library in April this year, but it was cancelled. It's amazing is that I still got to do an author visit months later at the beginning of this month actually. 

I technically a new friend last year, but we actually got to texting and talking and have become close friends throughout this year. I don't know what I would have done without her this year and I truly think God led us to each other last year, so that we could be there for each other this year. 

I started getting serious about writing faith-based content on here. God prompted me to do this in August and has continued to show up and inspire me each week for a new blog post. 

I finished the first draft of Golden Touch in January and wrote the first drafts of Emerald Phantom and Scarlet Phoenix this year along with the beginnings of the first draft of the fourth book, Black Rose, this year too! 

I learned to drive. 

I was able to get off of one of my medications for my anxiety and depression and feel ten times better because of it. 

Started going to a chiropractor (it's been amazing!) 

What are some things that happened for you or that you noticed that has made 2020 a good year?