2021

I will admit that being in confinement due to COVID-19 for this long has been tiring. We started this whole thing a few days after France, and months later, we are still at it. I started this time thinking that God had many things for me, and yet today, we’re not done. I know that I have been able to evolve a lot, but probably not the way I wanted to. I feel like I could have done more, but I don’t know how I am going to make it.

After beginning Stage 2 of reopening the province, you couldn’t imagine my joy! I missed human contact. I have had the opportunity to visit a family a few times, quarantined for 7 to 13 days, not going out of the house at all, simply to make sure I would not contaminate anybody, even though I was showing no symptoms. It’s been hard, it has been long and honestly, as much as I know that slowly going back to normal seems attractive, I think I’m going to miss it.

I think I’m going to miss having so much time by myself not doing anything more but writing this blog, talking to the students from church almost every night and having my young adults meeting on Saturday nights. And having time to cook, to discover new recipes. I’m quite happy about it.

I definitely miss my friends, but questioning my faith, my spirituality, how I live it, how I personally experience the Holy Spirit in my daily life... This is worth everything. Because people will pass, things from this world will pass. But God’s Word won’t. And it is really really important for me to grow in this domain of my life and learn how to please God in the best way I can.

One of my friends posted a video on Youtube explaining she is grieving and has been grieving 2020. This is sad. And honestly, I understand her. Many of us had plans, everyone passing important milestones - I can’t count how many of my friends graduated or started a new step of their lives, sometimes even both - I know many couples in my church who welcomed a new family member through weddings and births without me being there to support, encourage or congratulate them! So, I completely understand the grief in all of this.

However, at the same time, it was time to go back to the essentials. The basics of life. I think that this time of quarantine had to show us what matters in our lives. And to show us what to put again at the center. As I am writing, 2020 is not over yet. You might read this article years later, and I know I planned it for early January 2021. But it doesn’t change the point.

I learned things during these times. I learned how to be present for those I can’t see, I learned how to take care of myself without having anybody around me, I learned, as a quite lazy person I admit, why exercising is so important for my health, I learned that all of the people who surround me are not necessarily worth fighting for. And I learned how to love. I became friends with a person that I had never seen before through a common friend. And I believe that, even though I believe that in a relationship, everything is important, this new and fresh friendship showed me that the most important thing is to be present for people and to love them with everything we have.

Now, what can I add? What could I teach you? What could I share with you? I mean, you probably realized that I haven’t used a Bible verse yet! I already shared with you almost everything I know about love, we have shared what you are supposed to do for the people around you and we told you about how to inspire and impact the people around you.

So here it is: use every single moment of your life to please God. Paul will ask Timothy to “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Timothy 6:12). Later on, the writer of the book of Hebrews will say “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1).

No matter how you lived 2020, maybe with a feeling of failure or on the contrary of success, I encourage you to live this new year of 2021 in the goal of pursuing God’s will and fight the good fight.

Wishing you an abundance of blessings and a great year,
Do