This Is the Day

30 days left in 2020. Can you believe it?!?! I know for one I can’t!

This year has gone so fast, I can still vividly remember December 31st, 2019. My family and I were spending a couple nights with friends we visit every New Years. The five of us girls were eagerly awaiting midnight; watching movies, playing games and taking funny selfies with the Snapchat ‘New Years’ filters on them. We were all excited to count down to the new year… the new decade! We were all certain it was going to be a good year.

I think I hardly need to mention that our idea of a great 2020, the perfect start to the new decade, did not really play out quite as we had suspected.

In fact, I don’t think this year was anything anyone could really have predicted.

Bush fires raging across Australia. A global Pandemic leading to a worldwide lockdown. Hundreds of thousands of people losing friends and family members to the virus. People out of work. Horrible racial injustices. An overdue series of protests and riots about police brutality. A US tense election. Natural disaster. Homelessness. Increasing environmental worries. Injustices. Poverty. Just a few of the tragedies that have shaken our world this year.

And now, with only 30 days left in the year, it’s almost over. 2021 will be here soon, and for so many, it feels like a new start. It’s easy to slip into the mindset of wishing 2020 would hurry up and be over with. I know that’s been me recently… counting down the days and hoping that 2021 will be a bit brighter… that things will start to get a bit better.

However, a few days ago, when I saw a post on Instagram reminding me that there were only 33 days left of this ‘heck of a year’, I realised how wrong I’d been to wish them away.

Psalms 118:24 says, ‘This is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.’

This is such a beautiful, beautiful verse reminding us that each day is a gift from God and that we should rejoice and praise God for it. And if this is so, then who are we to wish these days away and waste them?

I thought about this, and how, recently, I had been feeling downcast and fed up of this year and everything that it has thrown at us. I have lots of regrets from this year, and I have missed out on lots of things I was looking forward to. But what I was (and still am) realising was that, no matter how difficult the year had been, we still need to make the most of it and of each new day left in it.

Sure, there has been a ton of bad stuff this year. I’m not denying it, and I’m not trying to worsen the blow or the heartache or the pain. But, something else that is true is that there has been an overwhelming amount of good stuff too, hidden amongst the bad. We have lots to be thankful for, and lots to look forward to in the coming days… weeks… months.

So, all I ask of you is this. That you make the most of the last 30 days of this year. Look for the good things in each day. Watch the sunset in the late afternoon. Laugh hard with your friends, and remind them how precious they are. Study hard and play harder. Decorate for Christmas and bake batches upon batches of cookies. Praise the Lord and glorify the saviour in everything you do. Cuddle your puppy. Go for walks. Live without regrets. Do whatever you want to do, but make the most of these final days of the year!

There are 30 days left in this year. Make them count.