Away we go.

Hello, you. it‘s me again. Bet you didn’t expect to hear from me—or maybe
you did. I always have something to say about you around this time of year. So, you probably expected nothing less of me. As you may already know, there are lots to be said, and matters to be discussed. I bet you thought you would get away without me saying anything. Yeah, well you thought wrong. I‘ve always got to say something about the year. I will always have something to say about you.

I spent days staring at my computer screen, trying to grasp the words to
say. What was that exactly, I thought to myself. You may be thinking
yourself, well, that was just me being me. What did you expect? Did you
expect the year to turn out your way? I mean, yeah, that would have been
nice. But you’re sneaky. You have your way of putting me into my place. I
couldn’t comprehend the words to describe just what twenty-twenty had done to me, and for me. It was a whirlwind of a year, and something I hadn’t quite experienced before–something all of us hasn’t experienced before. I had already spent two years doing university online and planned my next two years residential. I did not anticipate finishing out my spring semester of twenty-twenty online. I’m not paying that much to look at my computer screen.

That week of spring break, there was that fear of being sent home. Like some grand punishment, I wasn’t getting my preferred way. I spent five months unanticipated away from people I had grown accustomed to. But I learned so much during that time. It was a time God truly revealed His character to me. Coming back into the fall semester, we were fortunate to have in-person classes–but there was a cost. Life at Liberty was different now, people were different. We had all grown and changed. We had all faced some hard realities. Those first few weeks of coming back I was ridden with anxiety. A nervous cat scurrying about, anticipating something bond to go wrong. Yet I was continuously reminded of how powerful and wonderful God is. And He showed me that through the likes of people sprinkled about throughout that season of my life.

The fall semester was a dark time. I felt as though a cloud were hanging
over me constantly, and I reached a point where I was numb and didn’t know what I was feeling. And forbid you asked me what I wanted–my mind would always seem to draw a blank whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to eat. I suddenly would forget all restaurants and food in existence, and manage to mutter out an, “I don’t know.” I felt like a ton of bricks were being thrown at me all at once, and each brick held valuable information. I tried so hard to catch them all. However, I only had two hands and the rest ended up beating me down. I was overwhelmed. Beaten down, and my friends were also going through a lot. I wanted to be there for them–but sometimes I found myself in my room, copped up, unmotivated to even get out of bed. I had moments where I went weeks
without reading my Bible. And I came from reading it every day during
quarantine, to not being able to read Psalms because I was frustrated at God. But you see, it wasn’t at God. I was frustrated that I was wrong.

And even as that semester was coming to an end, I began to grow very
sentimental because reality was setting in. People were graduating, and not
only had we changed that summer, but we were also growing up. We were growing out of that season of our lives and into another one. And this isn’t an easy thing to accept.

There’s great suffering to be found in you, twenty-twenty. But in that
suffering comes our humanity. Twenty-twenty, you have been the most accurate representation of life in itself. You have represented what man goes through in the span of their life into one convenient year. You have been most precious, as you have been most disastrous. And because of you, and the wonderful works of God and His concept of not wasting anything, the book of James has taught me a great deal about suffering. And I was resistant to this at first. Why the heck would we rejoice in suffering as James calls? Well, do you want to grow up? Do you want to be tested in your faith? Do you want endurance? Do you want to mature and learn? Well, then rejoice in the Lord, for He is all we have, and the source of everything. Please see, James 1 for further details.

And with that, twenty-twenty, away we go. A departure is much overdue for both of us. You have been quite a year, and I have learned a lot. But I won’t miss you too much. Don’t worry about me.

It was the last full moon of the year. It was amazingly bright and cast a
shadow. The moon caused silhouettes that danced in the night. It glimmered off of the surface of the lake in my parents’ back yard, I was mesmerized. I am always astonished that the moon at times can produce so much light. If you stare at the moon through a telescope, with it full, and no moon filter, it can gradually make you go blind! That is nothing to be excited about but that’s just astonishing to me. The reason it makes you slowly go blind is that the moon reflects the light of the sun, and yeah, I think you get where I am going. Looking at the sun is a big no. Just ask Galileo. He liked looking at the sun a
bit too much.

If you know me well enough, you know that I have a passion and love for
astronomy. I even work at an observatory and have the opportunity to tell
people about the wonders just beyond our atmosphere. I get to see the eager faces of little boys and girls as they catch a glimpse of Jupiter‘s Galilean moons. The rings wrapped themselves around Saturn in some sort of galactic embrace. It was a sight to behold and never grew old in all my days of observing. Like, look at God go.

And much like every time, I observe the stars and our neighboring planets.
There comes a time in the year where I observe how far I have come. And I have done just that with you, twenty-twenty. I slammed the door to my car, as the moonlight shined upon my skin, I bathed in the coldness of the night sky, a familiar friend of mine that I enjoy solitude with. There was a relief I felt in the air, a weight lifted from my shoulders and placed into the hands of Someone much stronger. It took me back to earlier in the semester, in the warmth of the Virginian summer. Cole Mountain, a popular hiking spot not too far from Liberty, was a place where I had found solitude. Thankfully I had a friend willing to embark on that hiking trip with such spontaneity. Cole Mountain was a hike that looped around the mountain itself, and while I hadn’t fully completed the hike, I had a favorite spot. The trail begins in a wooded area that leads to a clearing atop the mountain itself. The trail cut onto the vertebra of the mountain, leading to another wooded area. Between the wooded sides lies this grassy clearing, except for a few trees and a boulder that sits off to your right, or the left depending on which way you came in. I had never been to a place so quiet, and a Sunday was a perfect day to enjoy such a thing. The sky was dotted with a few clouds, and the wind whistled past my ears as I sat against the wooded pole of a sign, barely off the trail. I sat by myself and talked to You. We had a pretty decent conversation, and I felt such peace. I lost all concept of time and was wrapped up in You. I watched the clouds roll by and scanned the houses in the valley below. I saw my friend surveying the land in the same clearing, but still a way off. I had always hoped to find such peace as that day, and it was to be found in that moonlight above. The moonlight seemed to wash my worries away, and I was able to find stable ground in the One who created such a thing. I smiled, what a way to go, what a way to
end things. No, I decided, what a way to begin things.