So, my housemates and I packed into Jenn's car, drove onto a ferry, and escaped to Bowen Island for new year's Eve. We figured that this is one day we can obey the restrictions in style. After braving the rain for one last 2020 hike and a misty mountain-top view of the ocean, we checked into our cliffside AirBnB at sunset in the early winter afternoon.
A good game of Codenames and a 2-hour Christmas musical (Jingle Jangle) later, we were snuggled on one couch in our lounge wear with mimosas in our hands, all set to reflect on our year. Jenn was the one who posted the challenge: summarize the year in three-word phrases. Here are some of my favourites which I am sure you can relate to:
Where's my mask?
Six feet apart.
Oh, my eyes!
Missing my friends.
Need a drink...(I am not much of a drinker, but I feel the idea)
Needless to say, 2020 was a notorious blur, like a long, endless episode of Survivor, starring us as the unwilling cast. It is not surprising that we welcomed its end. If nothing else, the turn of the page feeds our hopes that our nightmares would arbitrarily come to an end with the arrival of the new year.
But surprise, I don't hate 2020 as much I thought I would. More than that, the year may actually make it into the list of years I would revisit! Here are my other three-word summaries:
Cooking for six.
Experience four seasons.
Living with kids.
God's perfect timing.
God's divine appointments.
God is good.
God is good. God is good.
This was a year of many delightful firsts for me. And I cannot regret the new friends that I have gained, many of whom I spent much of the year missing; I would rather have to miss them than not have met them at all. I cannot regret spending all that time with my lovely housemates; my heart is fuller because of them. I cannot regret the lessons I have learned, the places I have been, and the minds that collided with mine. I cannot even regret the painful bits because of the balm that God delivers before, afterwards, and always. Most of all, I look back and realized that I would much rather be spending the social-distanced 2020 in Vancouver and Regent than in Singapore recruiting from the confines of home. God knew what was coming, nothing was a surprise disruption of his plans. I saw and witness that in Christ we lack no good thing.
So here is to 2021. Nothing is really new other than the last digit used to mark our days. But there's every reason to be excited because we will see more of the goodness of the Almighty God whom we call Father, Friend, and Saviour.
Image: The clouds clear at dusk enough to see the snow capped peak of the mountains.