Wondering Wednesdays – The Impact of 2020

Welcome to Wondering Wednesdays, a weekly post to learn more about me and other bloggers 🙂

Today’s questions is –  Looking back on 2020, what is something that had a big impact on you?

I feel like everyone would probably answer COVID to this question this year, and rightly so. It HAS had a big impact in my life in several ways. My husband is high risk, and so I have to be much more cautious than most. I work at a bank, and so we are considered essential workers, and therefore I do not have the option to work from home, and have had to work a normal schedule all year. In fact, work was busier for me this year than usual due to several factors (one being a merger, which is/was not good).

And so I sit here thinking, what besides COVID has really impacted my life this year. And the answer came almost instantaneously.

My pastor and his wife became missionaries this year. Not only has our church suffered a loss, but our family has. You see, they are like family to us. They treat my daughter like a granddaughter. They treat me like a daughter. To not have them literally right down the road anymore has been a difficult thing. They told us back in May/June, and left the end of September. It was a rough summer. Trying to get in lasting memories during a pandemic when you’re not supposed to visit people was kind of tough. We did the bet we could.

And I miss them terribly. Sure we text every now and then, but it’s not the same.

The Lord has been good to our church. It’s a long story, but I’ll shorten it by saying we’ve known a guy for a couple of years who is now our pastor. It was such a smooth transition, and while I was a little hesitant in the beginning (having something new is not easy for me), I love having him and his family around. He has exceeded my expectations, which just confirms to me that the Lord’s hand was in this the whole time. His messages are moving, he has so many wonderful ideas for our church (once the pandemic is over), and he’s funny (that’s important to me).

I’m not going to lie, it was a tough year for our church. We have people who react to the pandemic differently, feelings get hurt, and for a time it almost seemed to divide our church. But I think we’ve grown a lot since the beginning, and part of that was coming together as a congregation to pray for a new pastor. And in the weeks since new pastor has started, the “family” feeling that our church is known for has come back.

How has it directly impacted me? It grew my faith. The Lord made His presence known in our church in a huge way, and it just brought me closer to Him. I’m so thankful for that!

What about you? What is something that had a big impact in your life this year? Share in the comments!

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