What a year it has been! One year ago, were you making plans for the upcoming year? Did you plan to participate in particular church events, take vacations, and enjoy family gatherings? Or were you planning to spend nine months of the year staying home, cancelling events, and missing your friends? Who could have imagined a time when wearing masks would become the norm, church services would be cancelled, and toilet paper would be in hot demand! It has, without a doubt, been a surprising year that we could not have predicted!

Many families have experienced challenges this year due to the pandemic. Some have lost loved ones to death, perhaps because of the virus. Others have experienced significant illnesses, whether personal or of a family member. Some have lost income when hours were cut or businesses were closed. Difficult decisions had to be made about how best to educate our children.

As for our family, none of us could have predicted the events of this year.

• In January, our oldest daughter, Kelli and her husband Justin, lost a baby to miscarriage. It was our first grandchild.
• In February, our youngest daughter, Anne Marie, left for a much anticipated, study abroad trip to Europe with a group from Freed Hardeman. However, the trip of a lifetime had to be cut short due to the virus.
• In April, Kelli and Justin had their home destroyed in the Chattanooga tornadoes.
• In July, Kelli had to have a life-saving emergency surgery.
• In August, we were told that my husband, Steve, had stage 4 metastatic melanoma.
• From September through the end of the year, we made trips to Houston, Texas every three weeks for his multiple tests, procedures, and treatments.

No, we never could have imagined the challenges our family would experience in 2020. It has been a year like none other. However, as I reflect upon this year, I realize just how much gratitude I feel!

As for Anne Marie’s trip abroad, when visiting Italy, her group was able to leave the country one day before they shut their borders. Shortly after when time to return home from Belgium, their plane left the airport 40 minutes before its borders were shut down. Though there were several close calls, they made it home safely. I cannot imagine what it would have been like to have my 19 year old stuck in a foreign country during the pandemic!

The night of the Chattanooga tornadoes, Kelli and Justin had no sirens to warn them of what was coming. It was just a quick change in air pressure noticed by our son in law, that alerted him to yell for Kelli to run to an inner closet. Before getting the closet door closed, their house was lifted off its foundation, windows shattered, roofing was blown off, and heavy pieces of furniture were blown across rooms. If they had not made it to that closet, there is no doubt they would have suffered serious injury or death.

In July, Kelli and Justin were enjoying a much needed hiking vacation in Washington state. Just after arriving home, Kelli discovered that she was pregnant. Within a couple of days, she found herself in excruciating pain, in need of emergency surgery due to an ectopic pregnancy. If this would have occurred a few days earlier while hiking in remote areas of Washington, she could have very likely died from internal bleeding.

And since Steve’s cancer diagnosis, we have experienced more blessings than I can possibly count. We have discovered a multitude of new friends, reconnected with old friends, been blessed by extended family members, grown closer to loved ones, experienced an outpouring of love by Christians all over the world, been taken care of financially, and grown closer in our relationship to the Lord.

While I would certainly not want to again experience the difficulties of 2020, I see God’s protection and providence all around us. That alone is an incredible blessing! Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “in everything, give thanks.” It is not that we have to be thankful for everything that has happened to us, but we can be thankful in every situation, regardless of those difficulties. Therefore, I can say that I have much for which to be grateful in 2020!

What events happened in your life in 2020? Can you find unexpected blessings in those events?

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks”

(1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)