2020: Not According to Plan

As the calendar flicked from 2019 to a brand new year and new decade, you probably had high hopes and great plans for 2020.

Perhaps you had your wedding coming up or a big birthday party to celebrate, possibly a holiday of a lifetime. Whatever it looked like for you, 2020 did not go according to plan for any of us. 

You may expect this article to be a ‘look on the bright side’ piece but the truth is that’s not my reason for writing.  Let’s be honest about it, 2020 was pretty awful.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not denying the reality of some great kindness shown amongst people in a variety of ways this year. That was in itself beautiful to see. 

I am however reflecting on the fact that much of this year was fraught with restrictions, struggle, and challenges as we all battled Covid 19. Indeed it is a battle that at the time of writing is still very much being fought.

My own way of coping has been to buckle up, press on and pretty much ignore all the things I have been unable to do. It wasn’t a deliberate tactic and if truth be told  I only really noticed it had been my approach at all after a recent conversation with a friend. 

In the conversation we started to recount the things we missed doing; meeting up with friends, having people round for a meal, going to a gig or a football match. All of a sudden I was more aware of the things I desperately missed. 

The reality is that my year has not been anywhere near as bad as others. I haven’t contracted Covid, haven’t suffered the loss of a loved one to the illness and nor am I fighting it on the frontline like our brilliant NHS key workers. 

Overall, as I reflect on the year, I am left with a sense that life is not meant to be like this.  In much the same way as when I see news stories of natural disasters or wars across the globe, the overwhelming feeling is that this isn’t how things should be. 

This world is in turmoil and 2020 has brought that reality closer to home than I have ever experienced before. 

Taking this in is something we generally shy away from. Understandably so. It seems hopeless to consider the state of the world we live in in such a way and yet in 2020 this has been right in all our faces. Impossible to avoid. 

So is there hope to be found? Or are things indeed actually meant to be this way? Are we destined to a chaotic existence where pain and suffering are commonplace?  Gladly I do not believe this to be true. 

Contemplating the hardships of this year and in fact any year, actually brings me a sense of hope. Hope that this inner conviction that life is not meant to be like this is much more than wishful thinking. That it is a drawing to another reality. Almost like the innate sense a homing pigeon has for where its nest is.

You see the story of human existence as described in the bible is one in which we were all made to live free from pain and suffering. Created to enjoy a perfectly full life in connection with our creator. 

Yet we have been created into freedom. For freedom to truly exist there must be evil as well as good, wrong as well as right and pain as well as joy.  The creator does not force himself upon us but allows us the freedom to choose him. To choose love. Or not to if we so choose. 

This same creator did not leave us abandoned but came to the world as a man to show us what He is truly like. To bring us the possibility to reconnect with Him and to give us a hope that after this life we can dwell in a place where our pains and sorrows will cease.

In the meantime we continue on our journey of life in this world that is not as it should be. Nor as it will be. 

CS Lewis put it like this; “Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”