I attended my first Southern Baptist Convention as a “messenger” (a registered voting attendee) in 2015 when the annual meeting was held in Columbus, OH. There were 5,407 other messengers in attendance, and for this first timer it felt massive. Since 2015 I have been to nearly every convention, and they have all been larger than my Columbus experience.
Like most of the world, a little over a year ago, I left my job on March 13th (do I even have to write the year 2020? It will be infamous…) with rumors of an extended spring break due to COVID. Little did I know, when I said goodbye to my students that day, it ended up being our final day together. I know we all have a lot of feelings when we reflect on the past year and all that it brought.
I feel like a broken record, but when Covid-19 impacted our world last March, I wasn’t prepared to still be talking about it almost a year later. At least the first several months of 2021 will be touched by safety measures, vaccinations, and other things that have become a “new normal”. What if we looked for hard-won treasures in a hard-lived year that we could adopt as part of our new normal?
Sometimes, what sounds like a good idea is actually divine inspiration. I honestly didn’t want to join our church’s “Read Through the Bible in 1 Year” plan. I prefer reading shorter amounts and spending more time focusing on them, but I wanted to support what the church was doing and I believe in the value of reading through Scripture.
When I think back to New Year’s Eve 2019, it feels like another lifetime. Had you shown me a picture of people shopping while wearing masks and face shields, I might have assumed it was a scene from a sci-fi movie. Mention spending months in quarantine, worshipping via Live Stream, navigating Zoom meetings and Easter at home, and I might have assumed the world was coming to an end.
We have so much information at our fingertips that it is overwhelming. It is hard for me to think this is best for our mental health to have access to all the devastation, all at once, at any given time. It is difficult to stay grounded in Truth when we are bombarded with constant news of destruction, pain, loss, etc.
