Dear 2020,
I think I’m over you. I don’t think I’m telling you anything you don’t know; I also don’t think you can pretend that our relationship has been a healthy one. I’m just ready to move on from all that you’ve put me through. It’s time.
I can’t take it anymore, and I have to believe that something better is coming, and soon.
I have to move on and put all of this behind me.
At the same time, though, I have to thank you. I’m grateful to you, in a weird way, for what we’ve gone through together and how you’ve changed my life. Here’s why.
I believe in a good God who’s been with me through all of this. I believe in a God of fresh beginnings and new mercies and beautiful new creations. I believe that He creates good things – amazing things, even – in situations just like this.
He loves to help us start over. It’s what He does.
However.
I also believe that He takes what is old and tattered and broken and uses it. He uses things – things just like what we’ve been through together – as building blocks. Jumping off points. Stepping stones. Nothing is wasted, no matter how disruptive or painful or nonsensical it may be.
In the Old Testament Joshua had the Israelites set up stones of remembrance to steer their collective memory toward what God had done for them already. Also in the Old Testament, the prophet Samuel set up an Ebenezer – a stone of his own – to acknowledge that it was God alone who had gotten the nation of Israel as far as they had come.
So 2020, even while I’m ready to move on completely from the turmoil and chaos you have brought to my life, I’m aware that maybe God doesn’t intend for me to have a clean, fresh start now. Maybe – just maybe – He has something bigger in mind. Maybe – just maybe – there are things I need to acknowledge before I hastily jump into a relationship with next year, because maybe God has been in it all along and has plans based on all of it.
That is why I’m grateful to you. You’ve changed me and wreaked havoc on my life, but God has been with me. I know that to be true, and I know He’ll be with me as I move forward.
Here and now, I’m setting up a stone of remembrance – an Ebenezer, if you will. I’m opening up my mind to see what while our relationship has been a rocky one, a fresh start may not be what I really need. Maybe what I really need is fresh eyes to see what God wants to do with what we’ve been through to this point.
Yes, I’m ending our time together, 2020, but I must thank you before you go. You’ve changed everything, even in ways I can’t imagine now, but I’m willing to admit that maybe it’s not all a bad thing.
Thanks,
Me
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