It is that time of year again….FINALLY!
The final months of the year are always filled with festivities.
I am a newfound member of Halloween now that my son, Wyatt, is so young. I love Christmas time. The holly, the tinsel, church, and Santa. And I think New Years is always a little exciting (less so now I am no longer in my 20s…, but still exciting).
However, I have always been a Thanksgiving gal.
Maybe it is because I live for a good meal, or maybe it is all of the traditions that we celebrate and will ultimately pass down to our boys.
One of those family traditions is to say one thing we are thankful for as we sit around the turkey and trimmings.
This year, I will share that I am grateful for 2020…
For real.
Now hear me out.
Yes, there has been the ultimate upheaval of life as we all knew it.
Yes, like so many of you, my job was completely turned on its head to the point where I have routinely questioned my effectiveness.
Yes, I HOMESCHOOLED MY 14-YEAR OLD LAST SPRING… (whoa).
Yes, we have had moments of grief and fear.
Yes, we were even hit by a hurricane on the anniversary of the worst hurricane to affect my hometown in my memory.
BUT…yes, it has reminded me of the gifts in this life that are most precious.
Actually, I think the perfect metaphor for 2020 can actually be found in my experience during Hurricane Sally.
When my youngest son was only two weeks old, our family moved to our sweet bayou cottage. Finally, my husband and I were living our dream—a family of four with our dream house on the water.
Life was good, and we cherished it.
We also knew that come hurricane season, our lives, and our preparations would be FAR different than when we were living in town. We knew that no matter what, an evacuation was now the hurricane plan.
Then Hurricane Sally came. . . .
It wasn’t supposed to hit us.
Not like that.
We watched the news…ALL DAY. We made preparations for a tropical storm. Then we went to bed, and it all changed.
September 16th was one of the scariest days of my life. The storm surge brought in water.
SO.MUCH.WATER.
The eye- THE ENTIRE EYE- enveloped our sweet sanctuary and threatened it with the unrelenting wind, rain, and water.
At one point, as we sat in the dark listening to the news reports, I started thinking of how to get me, my husband, and one-year-old to the kayak we had tied to the pine trees as we watched them bend in the wind as the storm waters continued to rise and rise and rise.
It seemed unrelenting.
It seemed like it would never end.
Then…it did.
It was over.
We had survived.
We were okay.
There was water damage, but nothing the house was not built to withstand. We had loss, but nothing we could not, or would not, replenish. And yes, we had just lived through one of the scariest mornings of our lives.
BUT we were safe.
We were together.
We were OKAY.
I think when we all woke up on January 1, 2020, we never saw this year coming. It has been terrifying on so many levels and threatened and altered so many aspects of our daily lives with its seemingly daily Jumanji-level punches and heartbreaking losses.
However, here we are, in the holiday season, and wow- WE. ARE. HERE.
We made it through the storm that was this year.
I know that my family is more blessed than others. So many of our neighbors have lost so much and so many.
My heart breaks for the world and for the hurt so many have endured these past 11 months.
My prayers are filled with peace for so many.
Through my heartbreak, I am reminded in this unprecedented year of loss, fear, strife, and upheaval that what matters most in my life are the people I get to live it with.
I do not know what January 2021 holds in store for any of us.
I pray it will be a year of blessings and not continuous change and worry.
A year filled with hope and not fear.
A life filled with celebration and not loss.
On November 26th, when I sit down with the family and friends who I adore, I will say a prayer of thanksgiving and hope for my family and yours. This storm of the year may have bent me (and so many others) like the pine trees in my backyard. Still, it could not break us nor tear us down.
Happy Thanksgiving, from my family to yours.
