Cue all the blog posts about how 2020 was a challenge but there is so much hope for 2021. Am I right? But also, aren’t all those posts right? 2020 was a challenge but isn’t there always hope? I think so. 

Usually I write a blog about how I accomplished my goals in the previous year and what my goals for the next year are but instead, I want to share something more vulnerable and honest and not just because I didn’t achieve any goals. I actually crushed some! But because 2020 was hard and in people’s year-end reflections there can be a tendency (even in my writing) to be boastful and focus on the highlight reels when in fact, even in non-pandemic years, it’s the things that perhaps we don’t want to talk about that helped us grow the most. So here it is. My year-end reflection post. Read, or don’t read, that is your prerogative. 

We all know that I’m a planner. I’ve written about it many times, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that I JUMP on any tools to help me plan well. One of those tools that I have invested in for the past two years is Lara Casey’s Powersheets Goal Planner. If you haven’t heard about this planner check it out, buy it, use it, it’s wonderful. But one of my favorite activities in the planner is envisioning your most purposeful year and let me tell you, re-reading what I wrote for 2020 after living this year, was eye-opening. Here’s what I said,

“2020 would be full of joy. I would serve out of an abundance and give cheerfully. I would have a simpler home with minimal distractions -- allowing for silence and working with my hands. My mornings would be not rushed but eased into with prayer and fueling foods. Work would be productive and full of life. Evenings would be time to sweat or pour into others because my mornings set me up strong. I would adventure more and continue to get to know Adrian as we build our life together. My days would be full of joy even the ones that were less restful or more challenging because joy comes from knowing Him (God). I would hike more and move my body because it’s strong and capable. I would also have a wedding that demonstrates Christ.”

When I initially went to read it back, I was worried it was going to be painful - like my goals list. But in reality, I actually did have a year not unlike what I wrote. Did the year look drastically different? Yes. Was it also full of intense pain? Yes. But did God teach me about joy? Yes. Was I able to say no to some serving opportunities because they wouldn’t have been coming from abundance or cheerful giving? Also yes! Boundaries were set and it brought so much freedom. Did we work on our home, albeit slowly? Also yes. Were my mornings restful? Incredibly so! Thanks to WFH, I started nearly every day just ready for life and not feeling like I ran out of time. Evenings were not super sweat or others focused but they were full of rest and play and joy and it turns out that’s what 2020 Becca needed most. Every day Adrian and I learn more and more about one another and that has genuinely been the greatest adventure and we got to have TWO weddings that demonstrated Christ and I will forever be thankful for that experience. 

Not only that, but my word for 2020 was rest and let me tell you, it was felt. Was it forced? Sure, COVID definitely aided in that. But regardless of the method, I learned that when I slow myself down enough, I have so much more life and love to give to others. I read more in 2020 than I have in years, I created more, and I definitely laughed and cried more as well. 2020 was not easy and we’ll get to that soon, but it’s amazing to see how God does work, even when we can’t see it. Did I accomplish a lot of goals? Nope. But I did accomplish what actually matters and that’s the real win. 

Another tool I added to my daily planning, life, etc. is Val Marie Paper’s prayer journal. In it, you have prayer prompts to write in monthly, space to write out gratitude, and also spots to write our prayers periodically throughout the year. Naturally, this journal is far more honest and vulnerable than my idealized year. But I think it’s still important to share some things from it. Primarily, pieces from my written out prayers. Because if anything describes how 2020 actually was for me, it was what I poured out to God. 

In January I was learning about rest and joy while also balancing some heavy things. “Teach me to cling to joy even during the hard and the heavy.” 

February was full of acknowledging the ways I had tried to be God in certain situations and where I needed to surrender things to Him. “[These things] have brought weight onto my soul and instead of handing it over to you [God], I have been trying on my own, striving to make it better. I confess that I have been trying to be too much like you”

March and April were full of lament and struggle. “Lord, I desperately need you. I am done. I am exhausted. I am weary. I need you.” and “I am in desperate need of you. I am worn down and weary. I am sad and struggling. Pick me up out of the miry pit. Cleanse me and set me ablaze with passion for you.” 

May showed me God’s gifts through the birth of friend’s babies and God’s leading into elopement. “Thank you for excitement and joy and for bringing us [Adrian and I] together. Thank you for marriage and the picture it displays of you and your love for the church… thank you for Adrian Wesley. Thank you for bringing him into my life. Thank you for allowing me to be his bride.” 

June was full of lament for our nation and the need for deliverance from racism. “Our nation and globe cry out for your healing hand...deliver us from this hate, from this discord. Bring healing and reconciliation.” It also marked the passing of one chapter into the next as I also lamented the end of singleness. “I thank you for the gift of singleness and for all that I have learned and experienced. Thank you for the wonderful blessings you have poured out on me and all the adventures we’ve gone on. You are constant. Thank you for never changing. The world around us may shift and move and even humans are ever changing, yet you remain the same. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your kindness. Thank you for bringing Adrian and I together.”

July was full of tension, joy and excitement while balancing the weight of the heaviness of the world. “Thank you that even when the world feels topsy turvy, you are in control and we can rest in that.” But it was also a time of straying from God as I didn’t focus as much on time with Him as I needed to, making August a month of returning back to Him. “I have been distant from you. I have been consumed with the weight of the world and I am in desperate need of you… bring life and hope into my life...I am burdened. I am grieved.” 

And in all honesty, this trend of being overwhelmed by the world and forgetting to cast my cares upon God lasted several months. It wasn’t until our honeymoon at the end of September where I was able to rest again that I regained boundaries and rhythms of giving worries, fears, etc. to God but mostly listening to Him. It was then that I realized that many of the things I had ached over in 2020 were still unanswered. I realized that my faith and my hope were diminished and I needed restoration. So I took time off from leading a CG. I asked to meet up with some people to pray. I did a Bible study and read Martyn Lloyd-Jones and I practiced laying down things to God. Giving up control is hard for me. I’m prone to anti-trust and I think that is a huge lesson God has taught me this year, acknowledge that I’m rubbish at this and practice it, leaning on Him when it feels so desperately hard. This is what I wrote at the end of October. “Turn my bitterness into audacious hope.” 

And that is what I’ve been praying into these last two months. I’ve been praying for healing of my heart and for hope to be restored. 

2020 was brutal. It was full of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. In some ways, it mirrored my 2010 immensely but as I reflect, at the start of 2011 I was full of much more hope than I am today. 2020 in a lot of ways broke me in places I didn’t anticipate being broken and I’m only now entering a healing season. But the beautiful part of being broken, is that God restores us not unlike the Japanese art of kintsugi. And at the end of all things, we’ll be fully golden vases. I’m thankful for the brokenness, for how it’s drawn me nearer to God, but also how it’s pruned things from my life that shouldn’t have been there. 

I may not be as hopeful for 2021 as I was for 2011. But I am hopeful. Even just a little. Because we live in the glorious tension of Love being here among us and being on His way. The now and not yet. And that alone brings hope beyond measure.