“He hath made everything beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.” – Ecclesiastes 3:11

This has been quite a year and most people would say this year has been awful and terrible and sad, but that is just one way of looking at it. Don’t get me wrong, people dying is no small thing and is certainly awful. I have lost family and friends as I’m sure many people have, but even in that regard, there is an alternative way of looking at things. We would love it if we could live forever on Earth and if everyone we loved could live forever, but COVID-19 is an awful virus that has infected and killed many people, but the way I see it, the people we love are no longer sick, no more enslaved to a disease that plagued their bodies, and not only do they now abide in peace, but they abide with God and that is a blessing. It doesn’t mean we stop grieving and it doesn’t make any of it easier to bear, but knowing they are in God’s hands and company does lighten the load.

This year brought most, if not all of us, by surprise. But do you know who wasn’t surprised by any of this? That would be and could only be God.

But the thing that we forsake often is hard and unprecedented times like these, and not so much the times themselves, but their opportunity to reveal things to us. We make the mistake of believing that our pain and suffering and loss is all in vain and that God lives and exists to punish us, but that is not the God I know and serve. Amidst the pain and our lives being completely turned around and changed as we know it, there is a bigger picture, a message He is trying to impart to us – corporately and individually.

I have only been on this Earth for 21 years and as crazy as it sounds, it is this year that has been the best year of my life. I did not know that there would be a global pandemic, I did not know that my senior year of college would be on Zoom, and I certainly didn’t know that life, as I knew it, would change tremendously. Honestly, I’m an introvert and a homebody, so staying home hasn’t been a problem for me, but I have grown this year in faith. This year is the year I gave everything to God, and as a result, He has given everything to me. What was once a mystery to me is abundantly clear, and what used to stand in my way, including me, is no longer a barrier. Where I once had conflict and torment, there is only peace. I mention all of this not to brag on myself but as a testimony and testament to the fact that even in the most chaotic and unpredictable times, there are opportunities for peace, for order, and for blessings. I mention my personal progress to denote that this year has been a time to be alive, a time where God has made it known to me that His favor rests upon me, and a time to see His will done in my life.

To take it one step harder, I say that to say, more often than not, that the challenging times that we face are neither accidental nor punitive, but are presented for our benefit, presented so that God can speak to us, reveal things to us and uphold us. So often amidst hard times, particularly like now, we question where God is and we question whether He is there at all, but the truth of the matter is that He is always with us. But the question we have to ask ourselves is whether or not we are really trying to hear what He is telling us? Are we in the right posture to hear what He is trying to say? Are we truly willing to abandon all we think we know and trust Him? Are we willing to trust Him through any and everything and in spite of the fact that the way He desires for us to live is completely contrary to that of the world we live in? If the answer to any of those questions is no, it is not God who is absent and not there, but you who is not yet ready to hear Him, to follow Him and thus, cannot find Him.

I want to share my favorite poem:

My dear,

In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.

In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.

In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.

I realized, through it all, that…

In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.

This pandemic has changed our lives but it has not changed our God. He has given us a portion of Himself to overcome life itself. I love this poem because it does not discredit that there is difficulty in life, that there are times where we are overwhelmed with negativity and hardship and chaos itself. Notwithstanding, greater than all that hardship and chaos and negativity is God, and can be us when we surrender to the Spirit of God within us and its power.

This year has been challenging and literally, one thing after another. But the year is not over, hope is not lost and God remains on the throne. While the list of things we cannot know because we simply are not God remains long and sometimes even overwhelming, the list of who and what God is – merciful, loving, omniscient, omnipresent, meticulous, perfect – remains just as long, if not longer, and it is up to us which truth we prioritize, focus on and center our lives around.

This does not mean we live ignorantly, forsake this pandemic or COVID-19 itself, but it does mean never forgetting, especially on the worst days and the days that life itself seems impossible to bear, that God is not absent but “is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” and more importantly, with us at all times, in good times and especially, in tumultuous ones. It means it is not God that changes, for He is unchanging, but rather, His means of reaching us that vary, as there are infinite ways He reaches out His hand to us, He blesses us, reminds us He is with us, and comforts us with a sign that we will be okay and we shall overcome.