What a year.
Like other years, many posts have been left as drafts. Unlike other years (except a few), I haven't really written much, at least not on here. But something always keeps me coming back to write here. And I am thankful, even if I'm the only one who reads 😅
2020 started off with new perspectives and a blooming hope. Hope was there in the other years, yes, but had seemed so distant. It looked like a dwindling hope. After what felt like crossing a few mountains and valleys, hope seemed closer. But I s'pose that's what hope is, something that's not too far off that you can still see it, yet not quite close enough to touch. Such an interesting concept -- but not for this post.
But back to the beginning of 2020. I don't know, I thought it would be a "year of restoration." That's what I'd written in my journal and felt in my heart, anyway. I think I was well on my way, actually. And then... Covid. The hullabaloo and chaos it brought upon all of us - as well as the many losses, the events leading to the protests, and SO many other things - well, I wasn't quite sure what to make of the "year of restoration" bit anymore.
Yet it some odd ways, there were pockets of my life that did see restoration. Life slowed down, and the energy that would've usually been spent towards work and school had been pent up, and suddenly found new purpose. The art and piano (more the art) that I'd neglected for so long. Hiking with mom. Relationship with God.
...Amongst a few other "restored" or "in-the-process-of-being-restored" things.
Going into 2021. I think I've been fooled enough to enter a new year with a bare, minimal, and naive "hope" for things to be better than the previous one. I think as one grows older, life just keeps dumping more and more responsibilities and things for you to carry. I promise I'm not cynical haha. I'm not saying I won't hope. But on top of hope that things will be okay, I know now to expect the challenges and hurdles and want to be prepared to get through them, knowing that God will use those things to strengthen me and maybe encourage others. Being prepared to be strengthened? Haha I dono. And in some respects, perhaps it's because of hope that this perspective may have been able to soak into my mind. Suffering is not in vain.
It's weird. Nothing much has changed in the previous years -- I'm still going through the same things, pretty much. But I feel that my mind/heart/attitude has changed, and that has changed almost everything.
This passage keeps coming back to me.
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. —romans 5.3-5
So for 2021, along with the desire to love God more, I just hope to keep persevering. Take rests when I need to.
But I don't want to give up.
