Certain Thanks in an Uncertain Year

2020 has been quite the year.  Political strife, natural disasters, and a worldwide pandemic have been just a few of the headlines over this year.  “Social distancing” and “unprecedented” are terms we would probably love to throw out the window, along with the sadness and hardship they’ve caused for so many. 

We’re entering the holiday season with a great deal of uncertainty, another term we’ve been using a great deal lately, with many questioning how large to cap their usual family gatherings, or whether to even gather at all.  Advent follows closely on the heels of Thanksgiving, a holiday that gets more overlooked each year in the rush to Christmas buying.  But perhaps it is Thanksgiving that we need most of all this year.  Perhaps 2020 can be the year when our forced slower pace of life and loss of many norms allows us to view more clearly that for which we have to be grateful.  And perhaps our sorrows can help us to press in to God and realize what a great gift we have in the Incarnation of Christ.  He came to reverse the curse.  To make “everything sad. . .untrue.”

As we gather together, and even if we cannot, let’s remember to invite God into our celebrations, large or small, and thank Him that throughout all of the sadness, confusion, and disappointments, He is with us.  With Job, who truly suffered unprecedented disaster, may we say, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last, He will stand upon the earth.”