Welcome to 2021 my friends!
What. A. Year. 2020. Was.
I, like many of you, had made multiple plans… and they didn’t all come to fruition! I took a sabbatical from this blog, and also tried to take a sabbatical generally, but due to the wonders and the horrors which made up 2020, that didn’t quite happen.
Due to Covid, I was more active on Called to Watch than the word ‘sabbatical’ might suggest! I was also published on several other online spaces, including Eternity News, Lupus Chick, Penetrating the Darkness and Chronic Joy (where you can now LISTEN to my posts!). If you haven’t seen those articles, check them out!
- COVID-19 and chronic illness: life on the edge of uncertainty
- Why you need to seek something more than peace
- How to provide hope to someone with a chronic illness
- Chronic illness and Caring for the carers
- An article of mine was also linked as a resource in a post about dealing with anger.
What. A. Year. 2021. Will. Be.
It might be nice to dream of brushing 2020 under the carpet as we enter 2021 with hopeful hearts, determined to have a Better Year. I’m all for hope, but I suspect many of us will begin this year still processing what has happened and dealing with the changes in everyday and global life. That’s more than okay, and therefore this year on Called to Watch I want to focus on TRUST.
Over the past 12+ months, a lot of what we may have almost mindlessly trusted in – the ability to visit loved ones, to go through everyday routines without the fear of catching a virus, to simply not have a global pandemic – has been ripped away. We’ve found we can’t trust the world to go on as it has gone on before. I’ve written about why that’s not entirely a bad thing, but I also want to acknowledge that it is a hard thing.
At the same time, it means many of us are trying to find out what we can actually trust in! Some of us may never have really trusted in our health, but now even staying at our normal level of health is more uncertain than ever before. So what are you trusting in 2021?
Will you come with me on a journey to discover how to trust your chronically ill friend, how to trust others around you, how to be trustworthy, and most of all, how to trust the God who is holding 2021 in his hands, just as he cradled 2020?
Trust in 2021
Trust is not easy. Isaiah 50 describes it as walking in the darkness without light (50:10). The chapter goes on to say that devastation awaits those who make their own light (50:11) because doing so is a refusal to trust that God will light their way.
This is an apt description of trust, because it reveals the element of risk involved, and also the vital importance of making sure we are trusting the right things. Stepping into 2021 may feel to you like stepping into the unknown, into darkness. You may find yourself utterly unable to light up your own way, or tempted to lean on things and people who promise light, but will not deliver.
Take heart my friends, because as we will soon discover, we have a God who is trustworthy, and so:
Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on their God.
Isaiah 50:10
Trust is a journey. Being trustworthy is a journey. Yet in 2021 we need trust more than ever. So shall we walk this journey together?
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