If we can learn anything from 2020, it is perhaps to trust God with our lives. This year has been a year of uncertainty for most of us, making it hard to plan and hard to make commitments. For my husband and me, this year was also the year we moved from Germany to the US. We planned our move to the US many months in advance, completely clueless to what would actually await us once we moved to the US in March of 2020.
We were not prepared that the flight tickets we had booked in advance would get canceled. We were not prepared that we would have to move up our move by 5 weeks and only have like a week to get our lives together in Germany before the big move. We were not prepared for the 4-week quarantine awaiting us in the US, first in PA, and then when we moved to WV two weeks later. And we definitely were not prepared for the job market to completely dry up overnight and have to spend three months living with family before we could be back on our feet again.
The whole experience was inevitably accompanied by a lot of stress. First, we had the adrenaline rush that lasted for about a week that helped us leave Germany in such a quick manner. Then, upon our arrival in March 2020 to the locked-down-US, we entered a state of shock, still hardly realizing what was happening around us and still not realizing that we had actually moved and that life in Germany was a thing of the past. After the first two weeks in the US, a wave of disappointment swept over us, as my husband struggled to find a position in his area of expertise that still hired anyone. We almost started to wonder why did we leave our good jobs in Germany to come to the US and not be able to find employment here. But, of course, we couldn’t have predicted the crisis. And after all, we felt it was God’s will for us to move.
During the whole time, I knew I had to trust God. I knew God was good. But during the time immediately following the move, I wasn’t doing such a good job at it. I was frustrated with God. I prayed for our flights to not get canceled, yet they got canceled. I prayed for us to not have to quarantine, yet we had to quarantine for four weeks. I prayed for my husband to get a job in his area of work, yet it took three months before that happened. But as the uncertain months went by, God kept working on my heart.
I knew I had to trust God. I knew that if I didn’t, I would end up with a bunch of stress-related health issues. I knew that I had to surrender control to God, or to be more precise, admit that I was never really in control. I still kept praying for the things I wanted to happen in our lives, but I also started to trust God more, reminding myself that He is writing a beautiful story with our lives.
As I started to trust God more and more with my life, I started to experience more peace. I reminded myself of all the times that God provided for me, be it physically or emotionally. I reminded myself of all the prayers He had answered in the past. And that helped me to feel hopeful about the future, knowing that God would come through this time as well. Things may take longer or they may not happen the way I want it. But ultimately, I will be able to look back and see how God worked it all out for good.
And while a lot of things God has already worked out, there are still some things that we are waiting for and have to trust God with. But that’s okay. If nothing else, I learned how to trust God and I have hope for the future. I think this verse summarizes it well:
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
(NIV, Romans 15:13)
If you find yourself in a similar situation where you have to rely on God and trust in His timing, take comfort in knowing that as you submit to His will, He will fill you with joy and peace. And that with His help you can have hope in that He will work everything out for good. In hindsight, 2020 will make sense.
