Allow me to do something a little different here. This is not a blog, per se. This is the prologue to the Yearbook our church puts out every year. But, not everyone who reads this blog gets a Yearbook and I want folks everywhere to be challenged. And this is the challenge; make this The Year of the Cross. In your life and in your family and in your congregation. The Lord has done great things and, if we let Him work in us, greater things are coming.

            Every year, Rena makes me sit down and write this prologue to the Yearbook. I want to be upbeat and positive. Last year I wrote about seeing clearly with our Spiritual eyes after the years long struggle we were just coming out of and fully establishing the Yoke as one congregation. In that I cleverly (or so I thought) pointed out that in the year 2020 we should start seeing with 20/20 Spiritual vision. I thought I was being witty. We could not have imagined what was in store for us as the year began to unfold.

The year began with a death in a farming accident. Not a death as the result of age or disease. Sudden and violent. Other deaths of beloved church members followed throughout the year. In addition, many of our members suffered heartache within their own families, losing people they loved but who were not of the church. The weight of suffering pulled at the congregation. Add to that, the civil unrest caused by extremists throughout the country, and it was a bad time. But it got worse.

The pandemic hit. Suddenly we couldn’t even go see our own families in care facilities. If a family member had surgery, their loved one had to wait in their vehicle. Churches were closed. Theaters, restaurants, barbers and hair salons were closed. Schools closed. Recreation of all kinds, even family gatherings, were banned. The year 2020 seemed to magnify the hardships of previous years and battered the very spirit of our country.

But, in a sense, the turmoil of the year 2020 seemed to sharpen our Spiritual vision. This congregation could have fallen apart. We were just coming out of a period of several years that seemed to pull at the fabric of our Yoke. The sudden devastation that descended on the country, even the world, could have taken a congregation in change and destroyed it. However, that didn’t happen. When the church had to close, we seemed to draw closer together. When deaths came, the congregation rose to those occasions. We had been a praying congregation before, but with 2020 we became fervent in our praying. During a time of masks and social distancing, we found other ways to show our love for one another. 2020 made us stronger.

2021…..I don’t know what path the Lord has for us. But I do know that the Lord will be with us on that path. I have every confidence that we will journey through 2021 and that, for us, 2021 will be the Year of the Cross!  I am looking forward to it!