“2020 cannot end soon enough!”

How many times have you heard someone say this? I’m embarrassed to admit the amount of times that thought has crossed my mind over the past few months. From New Year’s resolutions, diets, and gym memberships, people seem to have a thirst for a fresh start. There is something deep within the human heart that longs for new beginnings.

A quick search of “Quotes on New Beginnings” will lead to an abundance of inspirational excerpts. Popular quotes such as T.S. Eliot’s, “Every moment is a fresh beginning” or “Be willing to be a beginner every single morning” by Meister Eckhart can motivate us towards a brand-new start. And possibly the most famous quote comes from Seneca, the mid-first century philosopher, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

Notice the span of time between these quotes—there’s a 2,000-year gap between Seneca and Eliot, and Eckhart lived nearly halfway between the two! What this tells us is desire for a new beginning is nothing new to the human soul.

A Broken Year

It’s not hard to arrive at the conclusion that 2020 was a broken year. On March 11th, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus crisis a “pandemic.” Millions of human lives have been lost internationally, normal public life was suspended, and fear paralyzed many.

COVID-19 was not the only evidence of brokenness experienced in 2020. Racial division in our country seemed to increase as unrest and anger rose to the surface. And in an election year, politics seemed to continue to alienate us from each other.

And all of this was built on top of already existent issues such as crime, cancer, injustice, poverty, fractured relationships, stress, self-centeredness, and suffering. For many of us, it seemed as though 2021 really couldn’t arrive soon enough! Elizabeth McKinney in her article Five Emotions We All Might Feel In 2021 claimed, “The sheer pleasure that came when we tore the last page of December from our calendars was felt in every home, and we could see the glow ahead.”

As this new year was approaching, I spent time with God reflecting on the rollercoaster that was 2020. To my surprise, the year contained more brokenness than I had realized. On February 1st, I boarded a red-eye flight departing from Quito, Ecuador in eager expectation of being reunited with my family back home in Texas. I had spent the week experiencing firsthand, the powerful ministry of Compassion International in some of the most impoverished areas of South America.

On this flight, I was introduced to the news of a growing threat of a virus. Little did I know at the time, that this virus would become a worldwide pandemic. The next eleven months would be unlike anything I had experienced before. The disharmony over mask wearing, politics, and racial disparity often left me feeling like a pastoral piñata being hit back-and-forth until I felt like I was about to break.

As fall arrived, 2020 continued to throw jabs at our family of five, from each of us testing positive for COVID, to caring for aging parents as their health deteriorated, to a vibrant young man in our church who took his own life. Experiencing blow after blow from 2020 isn’t unique to our family, many experienced more blows than we have. So this is not a comparison of wounds, rather a connection between weary people.

Brokenness and New Beginnings

There’s an ancient Japanese practice of repairing broken pieces of pottery by mending the areas of damage with powered silver, gold, or platinum. This art is called Kintsugi, which is a method that transforms brokenness into something valuable. Kintsugi is a reflection of our current need for a new beginning.

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