Some are enticed by the opportunity. What will I get to do next year? What adventures lie ahead? Maybe you’ve got a special vacation planned. Maybe it’s the year you’ll make a career move or work on your personal health.

Others are just excited to leave 2021 behind. When you think back on the last 12 months, it doesn’t put a smile on your face. In the feature film of your life, 2021 won’t make the trailer.

If you’re feeling hopeful about the year to come, keep it up. Let your optimism carry you into the new year.

But if you’re tempted to write off 2021 as a bust, I’d like to challenge that thought.

How many days this year did you wake up and see the sun in the sky? How many mornings did you get out of bed and have your eyes meet someone you love? How many times did your car start? Did you laugh this year more times than you can remember? Did you eat any good food in 2021? Have any refreshing conversations?

Did you control the climate in your comfortable home that has multiple rooms with running water? Did you spend any time outside while the leaves were changing colors? Acquire a new article of clothing you love to wear? Listen to any good music? Were you ever struck by the pink sky as the sun began to fade, just knowing with full certainty that you could witness it all again tomorrow if you wanted to.

And how many times did you have to tell your heart to beat and your lungs to breathe in order to experience it all?

2021 wasn’t a bust at all.

For those who struggled, for those who were let down, and for those who just couldn’t get well. Maybe you lost a job or your child was bullied or multiple people you love passed in 2021. Maybe this year you battled a hellish cocktail of suffering all at once. Maybe it broke you down.

But look at you. You’re still here.

2021 deserves our reflection. It might not have been your favorite year, but it was your year nonetheless. God gave you 365 days, and you did exactly what you wanted to with them.

On Friday evening when the clock begins to tick away 2021, I hope you’ll ponder on all the blessings that found you this year. Even if you began right now, you’d never come close to naming them all.

Because one calendar year is, at the same time, a momentary flash in the span of eternity as well as a languid journey inching along, too vast to categorize. We can’t even recall the events of last week! How could we allow a handful of events, no matter how painful, to label an entire revolution around the sun?

Instead, my plea for you is to recall what is truest about 2021. How can we best sum up this year? What or who was there through it all? Perhaps it’s time to look beyond the year’s gifts and straight to its Giver of them.

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Colossians 1:15-17

While we might not know what 2022 holds, we certainly know who holds it.