by Cathy Knechtli
It’s amazing how much changes in a year. Just thinking back to what I was doing this time last year in my role as head of QB Women; writing my launch article for our 2020 conferences, booking flights at the Boxing Day sales, working on our poster and website design.
Covid-19 was just a whisper on the horizon, something we’d just started hearing about but not thinking it would affect us in any way, after all it was thousands of kilometres away. We just kept merrily on our way, planning and preparing for the year that was to be 2020, much the same as we’d done the previous year and the year before that. We had no idea that in just a few weeks our whole world would be turned upside down, that every aspect of our lives would change and the way we live would become very different.
We had no idea… we had no idea… BUT GOD DID!
There are no surprises with God, He is greater than our feelings and he knows everything. (1 John 3:20). Nothing in all creation is hidden from Him (Hebrews 4:13).
He knew that 2020 was going to be a year of change, of refinement, of resetting in some aspects of our lives. He knew it was going to be a hard year for some of us but through it all God was still God. He was still walking with us and working in our lives.
Personally 2020 was a year of change for me in my role as head of QB Women. We completely changed what we do and learnt lots about connecting with women online and in other ways due to the fact that we couldn’t meet face to face. We met some wonderful women through our online work and we are greatly thankful to God for leading and guiding us during this period of change and growth.
What are your reflections on 2020?
We can look back on it and see the bad, look at what was lost and damaged or changed, or we can choose to look back on 2020 and see God in the midst of it all. We can choose to look back and find those moments where God was close, those moments where in spite of whatever was going on around us we knew He was with us and holding us close to him. We can choose to look back on 2020 and say ‘It is well with my soul’.
2020 was our year to be still, to draw close to God in the stillness, to find Him in a new way.
Looking forward to this year, 2021, we are currently planning and preparing for the year, but there’s no way we can know how the year is going to go. However, we can be thankful that God knows. We can be thankful that He hears us, that He is with us and will be walking right beside us through whatever 2021 brings.
Isaiah 43:18-19
18 “Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.
God is calling us forward into 2021. We are not to dwell on the past, on the year that was 2020. We are to look forward to 2021 knowing that He is doing a new thing. He is calling us to come alive, He is making a way for us, He is ‘watering’ us with streams in the wasteland.
Just as much as 2020 was our year to be Still, 2021 is our year to Come Alive. At our conferences and retreats this year we will be looking at what it means to really come alive in God and to follow His leading, to step out into where He is calling us and to trust Him. The garden that He was tending and watering during our stillness is now ready to bloom and come alive.
I’m excited for 2021 and to see where God takes us together as His women!
Cathy Knechtli is the State Director for the Queensland Baptist Women. Cathy has a passion for Jesus, to share His love with women and for worship, and loves to see women and young people released in their God given giftings. She lives on the Sunshine Coast with her teacher husband, 4 kids, and various musical instruments.
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